How is Fleming described in the novel, On Distant Ground?

Fleming is described as impulsive. He makes major moves on impulse —impulse that he does not always understand. Freeing Tuyen took several complicated actions and violations of protocol, but the actions fulfilled a nearly inexplicable impulse. Similarly, once discharged and facing unemployment and disgrace, he bypasses a job offer because he feels he must find Suong—who may or may not be alive—and her son—who may or may not exist at all, and who, if he exists, may or may not be his. Fleming "finds himself by finding and accepting his son, and taking the child of war who faces a bleak future back to a new family in a more prosperous and more peaceful land."