Summary: Chapter 10
In retaliation for receiving aid from American soldiers,
the Communist Vietcong attack the nearby village that Richie’s squad
has recently pacified. Richie’s company creeps up on the village
to set an ambush for the Vietcong. Feeling exposed and vulnerable,
Richie wonders how Kenny would feel if Richie died, and ponders
his own motivations for joining the army, trying to decide whether
they were selfless or selfish. He tries to take his mind off these
weighty and upsetting thoughts by fantasizing about beautiful women.
But he begins to worry about the fact that he is still a virgin,
feeling inadequate because of the hypersexualized stereotypes of
black men. During the ambush, Richie fires blindly into the darkness.
Lieutenant Carroll is hit by enemy fire and dies shortly after they
reach the hospital at Chu Lai.
Summary: Chapter 11
We spent another day lying around. It
seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
The squad members are in shock after Carroll’s death,
since they have lost someone whom they all loved and respected.
At Simpson’s request, Richie writes a letter to Carroll’s pregnant
wife informing her of her husband’s death. Richie wonders how his
mother and Kenny would react if they received a letter about his
death. Stewart praises Richie for the letter he writes to Carroll’s
wife and offers him an office job, but Richie refuses.
As usual, there are hours of inactivity after the brief
but traumatic periods of combat. During a slow period, Lobel approaches Richie
and admits that he holds himself responsible for Carroll’s death.
He was too afraid to fire his weapon during the ambush, and he believes,
irrationally, that his ineptitude is what caused Carroll to die.
Richie consoles Lobel by admitting that, even though he fired, he
fired blindly.
Every squad member is promoted one rank for his valiant
performance in a dangerous situation. Richie spends tortured hours
trying to find a meaningful reason for Carroll’s death. He wonders
why he and his fellow soldiers are so far from home. He starts but
does not finish a letter to Kenny trying to give a reason for his
own death in case he is killed. The platoon is assigned a new leader,
Lieutenant Gearhart, who has been in Vietnam for only two months.
Richie’s mother writes to Peewee and asks him to tell Richie that
she loves him very much. Richie is sad that she is unable to express
her feelings directly to him, and writes a letter telling his mother
that he loves her too. Richie realizes that though they have never
gotten along well, he desperately needs his mother now. When the
news feature about Richie’s squad airs, no one mentions the fact
that Lieutenant Carroll is shown walking among them, still alive.
Summary: Chapter 12
Brunner expresses his anger at the “faggots and Commies”
back in the United States who burn their draft cards. He blames
them for the constant shortage of men in the squads. Johnson later
asks Richie for his opinion about the war protesters. They both
admit that neither has thought much about his decision to enlist.
Richie confesses that he is no longer sure who the good guys and
bad guys are, since all the talk about freedom and Communism ceases
to mean anything in the heat of combat. Johnson tells him that there
is no meaning to Vietnam and suggests that Richie stop thinking
about these larger issues. As he falls asleep later that night,
Richie wonders whether people can still be good.
Analysis: Chapters 10–12
In the absence of any rational explanation, Richie struggles
to understand the war. The newspaper and television rhetoric that
justifies the war means nothing to a soldier who comes face to face
with an armed enemy. The war appears to be futile: Richie’s company continually
tries to pacify villages with gifts of food and medicine, but the
Vietcong torture and kill villagers who accept these gifts, and
the American army is unable to protect them. The war has no simple
divisions between heroes and villains, good and evil, or right and
wrong. Instead, the war is a messy, brutal tangle of deadly mistakes
and confrontations in which blind chance often determines who lives
and who dies. The other soldiers in the squad accept the irrationality
and meaninglessness of combat and force themselves not to ponder
questions that have no answers. Johnson, in fact, regards Richie’s
philosophical struggle as a dangerous distraction. Johnson does
not care why he is in Vietnam; his only goal is survival, and he
is not fighting for anything other than his own life. Yet Richie cannot
stop thinking about the war’s meaning and is compelled to find meaning
and order amid the chaos.
