On Richie's initiation to Vietnam, he makes his first friend by the name of Harold "Peewee" Gates, with another on the side named Jenkins. Both of these men are new recruits assigned to Richie's squad. Even though their sergeant lets them all know that their encounters should be very easy, because there is practically no fighting near Chu Lai, You can see it coming from foreshadowing, for how could there even be a book with no conflict?

Upon the squad's first patrol, the worst thing for the moral of a new recruit happened. Jenkins is blown up by a land mine in clear view of Richie, along with the rest of the squad. Lost in his own thoughts about th

e horror of the inexplicable act he just witnessed, he is dreaded that he cannot even express his pain to his mother or brother. With more and more of his new brothers dying almost daily, he seems to realize that there is no honor in our new wars as he had once thought. There is especially no dignity with what his superior officers seem to be doing. With no disregard to their men, they're sending them to do jobs with great losses in order to further their own military career. These officers are willing to do what their doing because it is not actually them going into near the intense line of death.

A certain point of interest for me was when the whole gang was talking about marriage. Some said that a certain fellow should get married when he got home. One thing that was kind of awkward though was that one said that he should wait until he got "Back in the real world" before he made any real decision. That was just a little wierd because it almost seems like they don't realize that the situation that they were in was even more real and maybe even more important than being back in the states. Here at home we're always concerned with what we can do to better our lives. Being in war is almost going back to the primal state of only being concerned with survival, what with being shot at daily and all. Especially during this situation you should make your critical moves of trying to survive in our society. Thinking during this time should allow you to realize the most important things that you left behind. Whe

Some topics in this essay:
Chu Lai, Peewee Richie, Vietnam Harlem, Dongan Dongan, Peewee Gates, Brunner Brunner, Dean Myers, Sergeant Simpson, United Army, Sergeant Dongan, injured sent, richie injured, richie injured sent, trip home,