Caputo Found the Suburbs Confining and Stultifying.

Caputo found the suburbs confining and stultifying. He was looking for a place to prove himself as a man after what could be viewed as an overly 'soft' beginning in life.

The men's anticipation of war ran a gamut of emotions from excitement to fear to relief.

During the initial phases of adjusting to life in Vietnam, Caputo reports being enchanted by the country. However, a great deal of the nation was experienced as extremely 'foreign.' Even the jungle looked the same. The men were never sure who was a friend and who was a foe.

False, because standard types of military engagements were rare. However, Caputo reports that when the soldiers could engage the Vietnamese in a standard combative situation, this produced almost an orgy of violence, because of the men's enthusiasm for the concrete nature of the combat. Most of the time, the men felt frustrated by the lack of direct engagement.

Q5. The massacre reflects a sense of built-up rage on the part of the men. Uncertain of how to deal with a war that was being fought by villagers and angry at being bested by peasants, the men took out their frustrations and aggressions on the townspeople.

Q6. The men are filled with a sense of pent-up emotion and dread. This is finally released in the first firefight. Returning to the normal routine and coping with the realities of the horrors they have seen, leaves many men feeling extremely depressed.

Q7. Sullivan's death is narrated in very graphic detail to Caputo, including how the soldier's body was treated after he died. Unlike Ingram, Sullivan did not go looking for death, but death found him anyway. He is humanized in Caputo's imagination. Caputo can imagine Sullivan offering him a cigar, and telling him "it's a boy" after reading a letter from home. Because Sullivan died after Caputo left, Caputo feels a sense of responsibility to the man. He cannot help but wonder that perhaps, if he had stayed, he could have prevented what happened to Sullivan.

Q8. Unlike the medical doctor who can examine the bodies of the dead soldiers with clinical thoroughness, Caputo cannot shut himself out from the horrors he is witnessing. He is haunted by the realization men are dying for a pointless cause. He has seen no advancement in the war, only carnage. More and more men under his watch are being slaughtered, leaving him with a haunted sense of being an officer in charge of the dead.

Q9. These three men had been part of Caputo's life since his early time as a soldier. He was haunted by the discrepancy between their vitality while alive and the sorry sight of them as corpses. Caputo had flashbacks of seeing them as dead men, much along the lines of what we would call today Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-style flashbacks.

Q10. Caputo dedicates his book to both Walter Levy and Sullivan. He knows Levy as a young (Levy was twenty-three), handsome and attractive soldier. With great vividness, he can imagine Levy's parents in New York City opening the door to see a uniformed man, being advised of their son's death in combat. He is horrified by the waste Levy, a highly intelligent and educated man represents in terms of the carnage generated by the war.

Q11. Caputo fantasizes about deserting, but is not really serious about doing so. He is too far entrenched (no pun intended) in the military code of honor. Although he despises violations to that code, he cannot bring himself to break it.

Q12. There is no morality in war. Even when the men occasionally show a sense of ethics, the fears and the memories of their dead comrades, along with the culture of the Marines cause them to react with unthinking violence when prompted -- restraint is the exception, not the rule.