Prologue to This Book, Caputo

¶ … prologue to this book, Caputo highlights some of the main themes of his memoir. One of the major themes that come up again and again is the arrogance and illusion of overarching American power and how it is dashed in front of his eyes as a young Marine lieutenant. While the work at times exudes the heat of battle, more often than not it exudes the heat of the march, the drag of tedium and the disillusionment of futility of combating an elusive enemy in the bush. The important thematic lens that magnifies all of the other themes is the personal view of the battle that Caputo provides at the beginning as a Marine lieutenant in one of the first ground units to deploy and at the as a war correspondent covering the tail end of the Vietnam War. Caputo's coverage provides the reader with a suitable beginning as well as a denouement to the conflict beginning. The moral conflict is the most telling as it has formed the author's character. In Biblical imagery, he describes the movement to contact with the enemy "the dawn of creation in the Indochina bush, an ethical as well as geographical wilderness (Caputo, p. xx)." As in creation myths, the reality is formless and void and what is created is either the Biblical paradise or the revelatory apocalypse. The personal choice is the source of the personal epiphany for the author and the reader as well. The contradictions between the two provide an image of the dichotomy of his youth when he states that "At the age of twenty-four, I was more prepared for death than I was for life (ibid., p. 3)." The literary account is his preparation for life.

The book is divided into three parts. The first section, "The Splendid Little War," lists Caputo's personal reasons for joining the United States Marine Corps (USMC), his training that followed and his arrival in Vietnam. Caputo was a soldier of the 9th Expeditionary Brigade, USMC. These were the first American regular troops unit sent to take part in the Vietnam War. He arrived on March 8, 1965. The 9th Expeditionary Brigade was deployed to Da Nang primarily to set a perimeter around an airstrip that ensured arrival and departure of military goods and personnel. The first skirmishes against the NVA and the Viet Cong left the author and his comrades with the impression that the Vietnam War was small and relatively unimportant. These skirmishes and the conflicting images he speaks of express much of his own contradictory feelings about the war. As they begin a mission Caputo describes his company: "With our helmets cocked to one side and cigarettes hanging out of our mouths, we pose as hardbitten veterans for the headquarters marines (ibid., p. 106)." This macho image conflicts with their feelings of vulnerability "We have learned that, in the bush, nothing ever happens according to plan. Things just happen, randomly, like automobile accidents (ibid., p. 106)."

. In the Part Two of the book, "The Officers in Charge of the Dead," in seeming foreshadowing of his future life as a journalist Caputo is reassigned from the rifle company to a desk job documenting casualties. Caputo did not want this duty. The position in the Joint Staff of the brigade was a change that he condemned, because he was proud of his rifle company duties. This distance from the Main Line of Resistance gave Lt. Caputo a different perspective of the conflict. Caputo described senior officers who were more worried about trivial matters than strategy. Lt. Caputo witnesses enemy corpses being treasured as hunting trophies as well as shown off to generals. He also describes American corpses that carried evidence of Viet Cong torture. Caputo muses on the phrase "traumatic amputation" or a soldier loosing a limb in battle (ibid., p. 167). The choice of language sanitized the action in an obscene way. In Chapter 12, the effect of tending the dead is taking its toll on the author. He reminisces that "In war, a man does not have to be killed or wounded to become a casualty (ibid., p. 207)." In a sense, a part of him has died as well and went away with these men he loves.

In Part Three, "In Death's Grey Land," Caputo is assigned again to a rifle company. His old battalion, the One-Three is replaced by the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. His description of these soldiers is lamentably bleak. He describes them almost like his own children and that he "was both charmed and saddened by their innocent enthusiasm (ibid., p. 217)." Levy's death especially affects the author. As he steps out of the narrative he addresses Levy directly: "As I write this, eleven years after your death, the country for which you died wishes to forget the war in which you died (ibid., p. 223) ."

Personally, the author while writing this essay recalled a relative who fought in the Vietnam War as a riverine in the U.S. Navy. His descriptions of his homecoming in the airport as he was being spit at while in uniform are telling. Americans of all stripes want to forget this war. This forgetfulness unfortunately leads to other future wars in which the veterans' descendents go on to fight as well.

In Chapter fourteen, the war takes a bitter turn as Caputo remarks that "The fighting had not only become more intense, but more vicious. Both we and the Viet Cong began to make a habit of atrocities (ibid., p. 228)." Years before the My Lai massacre, the paradigm of the war was set. According to Caputo, the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong were fierce and clever warriors and who earned the grudging respect of American soldiers. Caputo remarks further that his fellow Marines as stopped wishing for epic, World War II-style battles. Instead, they had to learn to detect booby taps, to counter-snipe and to comb the jungle in search of the enemy bunkers and rations. In his new platoon, Caputo further describes the soldiers under his command when he remarks that: "Looking at them, it was hard to believe that most of them were only nineteen or twenty. For their faces were not those of children, and their eyes had the cold, dull expression of men who are chained to an existence of ruthless practicalities (ibid., p. 235)."

Lt. Caputo took part in these operations until some troops under his command miscarried orders and shot two suspects deliberately. Eventually, Caputo was relieved of his command and the charges were dropped. Caputo was given orders to report to a training camp in North Carolina and eventually received an honorable discharge from the service. While waiting to be transported, Caputo is confronted an old gunnery sergeant whom he meets who to the front is a veteran of Iwo Jima and Korea, who remarks bitterly "Goddamn this war. Goddamn this war (ibid., p. 248)." This is not a "good war" (if there such a contradiction in terms exists). Even a veteran of the "good war" (World War II) condemns the action.

The epilogue was written nearly ten years after the end of Caputo's tour of duty, He then returned to the war in Vietnam as a war journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Old memories of his war experiences and his comrades flood his mind as he witnesses the fall of Saigon to the troops of North Vietnam. Caputo left Vietnam on April 29, 1975. The former lieutenant morbidly remarks that "I knew then that something in me was drawn to war. It might have been an unholy attraction, but it was there and it could not be denied."(ibid., p. 71) Undoubtedly, he had unholy memories and demons he had to work out. Such work paved the way for his cathartic release as an author. His exorcism begins in the return to Vietnam and his final view of the doomed war. As he was first in, he is among the last out as the North Vietnamese take Saigon.