Philip Caputo's A Rumor Of War

Improved Essays
A Rumor of War is an American novel that was written by author and United States Marine Corps infantry lieutenant Philip Caputo. The book was published by Macmillan Publishers in 1977 in New York City. The novel is the story of Marine Lieutenant Philip Caputo as he landed in Danang with the first ground combat unit deployed in Vietnam. The novel follows his life for the next sixteen months until his deployment is over. He enters the war with thoughts of ending it very quickly in a few weeks or months. He then planned on returning home to a parade of thankful citizens cheering, shaking his hand, and telling him how much of a difference he has made in the world. What he actually finds is a rude awakening to the realities of a war. He is not fighting …show more content…
Like other young men at the time, he had a strong desire to prove himself as a man. At twenty years old while attending Loyola College, Caputo enlisted in the Marines ' ROTC program with the dream of ending his days of comfortable living in a small town. He has the hopes of being a hero and being more than what he is back home. At Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training and Officer School, Caputo learned about Marine history, military weapons, and tactics to use in battle. In January of 1965, Caputo got his first chance to prove himself. His first command as an officer begins with the men in the Third Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan. He is told that the marines are in a strictly defensive operation. They stare at maps, patrol the borders of the military base, go on the occasional patrol outside the base, and dig trenches and pile sandbags up to protect the base. As the months go on, the attacks and contact with the Viet Cong increase and become more and more violent. He is finally seeing the action he had hoped. As the months continue, however, Caputo and his men began to slowly show signs of psychological trauma from the stress they are enduring constantly. The men become depressed, begin to hate, and truly become “killers.” Caputo is later taken from the front line to receive training in Japan as an assistant adjutant before returning to headquarters back at Danang. In this new job, he

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Idealism and truth are related concepts with the similar functions, but can have different effects on a person’s life. Idealism is a what protects an individual’s state of mind, and gives power to endure a situation. However, when that state of mind is shattered so is a piece of a person. This leads to a series of detrimental choices that leads to the person’s downfall. Truth regardless the shape, form, or bluntness is what gives an individual a sense of reality.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "The Name Of War" - Jill Lepore In the developments in the book, Lepore clearly states that “King Phillip’s War was the defining moment” in early American history. What she means is that the war was mainly fought on the basis of the need to maintain cultural identity. The Native Americans fought hard to ensure that they kept their Indian ways of lives while the English colonialists also wanted to introduce their new ways of lives and make allies with the Indians. The English colonist majorly developed their American identity before and after the wars through triangulating between their English cultural modes of living and the Indian experiences.…

    • 1013 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    War has been a constant part of human history. Whether it was World War I or World War II, war has greatly affected all aspects of life. Soldiers, families, countries, and societies, have all suffered through these times. Ultimately, the effects of war are extremely detrimental. Timothy Findley’s masterpiece The Wars portrays the detrimental effects of war and how these effects are endured on a personal level, familial level, and a communal level.…

    • 1571 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Derek Catsman and Thomas Bruscino are distinguished and reliable authors who in two of their recent works- addressed the past intolerance white americans showed towards a different race(s) in the nineteenth century. Thomas Bruscino wrote, A Nation Forged in War, to tell the tale of how an awful situation led America to gradually accept and appreciate ALL americans. Bruscino next applies this knowledge and analyzes how this unification happened. Next, Derek Catsman expresses his views about one of the most famous protests of the civil rights movements; the freedom rides. In this he reveals the shocking mistreatment african americans faced during the reconstruction era.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This dear America book is called my secret war, a diary of 13 year old Madeleine Beck taking place in 1941. At the start of the book it talks about how Maddie's father is a Navy officer and is on an aircraft carrier protecting the Pacific. She is now living in Long Island, New York. She is having trouble making friends and likes this boy in her class johnny. She and johnny become friends because he thinks it's so cool that she has a dad in the navy.…

    • 780 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is not an adventure book written so the good guy always wins. History is told by the people who were involved in the event and Philip Caputo was a marine in Vietnam. A Rumor of War shows what marines went through in Vietnam through the first hand account of Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo. Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo’s story gives the world an inside point of view on the Vietnam War.…

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Things They Carried” demonstrates the effects of war to someone both physically and mentally. The story takes place with O’Brien and Alpha company during the Vietnam war. He goes through and tell the reader what each character is carrying and also helps shed some light on each character's conscious thought. Some characters who dealt with these mental struggles really show to the reader some of Freud and Jung’s theories. These examples are Freud’s theory on a person's shadow, and Jung’s maiden and child archetype.…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With The Old Breed Summary

    • 2030 Words
    • 9 Pages

    “I enlisted in the Marine Corps on 3 December 1942 at Marion... But prompted by a deep feeling of uneasiness that the war might end before I could get overseas into combat, I wanted to enlist in the Marine Corp as soon as possible.” (With the Old Breed Chapter 1paragraph 1 page 5). These are the brave words from Sledgehammer, the main character. Sledgehammer, amongst multiple individuals in his class, had the same attitude.…

    • 2030 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Martin Guerre Book Report

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis is a historical tale about sixteenth century identity fraud and the authors who wrote about the Martin Guerre trial. As a historian, Davis uses several forms of writing as her resources including “letter and diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, family histories…plays, lyric poems, and stories.” Davis realizes that these types of resources come with over-exaggerations, gaps, and contradicting perspectives, subsequently she supplements these with the use of her knowledge of the French government, geography, business practices and the legal system of the sixteenth century.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War tells the story of a man’s demoralization during the Vietnam war and how it is associated with a refusal to any direct guilt for his own actions in that war. Throughout the book, you can sense the murderousness that comes from Caputo due to several reasons. Although, at the end of the book, he does not confess this murderousness urge that he experienced during his time in Vietnam. Overall, I believe that Philip Caputo was able to prove that he is not guilty and that he is a victim to the U.S. government and the U.S. military as well as the environment of Vietnam, and the relentlessness of combat training. Coming straight out of his own mouth, Caputo was able to prove compelling evidence that these forces developed…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    From 1955 to 1975, American soldiers were fighting a war in Vietnam. During this time Marine Lieutenant Philip Caputo landed at Da Nang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Months later, having served on the line in one of history’s ugliest wars, he returned home. Physically whole but emotionally impacted, his adolescent beliefs forever gone. In his book, A Rumor Of War, Philip Caputo offers an insightful analysis regarding the psychological damages a soldier faces post-war.…

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There have been many powerful accounts that voice the stories of events that took place prior to, the day of, and after September 11, 2001 but many of those represent one outlook depriving the reader of the different perspectives and leaving the story incomplete. In the book, The Good War, author Jack Fairweather in some way assembles various short stories that while following the timeline of the War in Afghanistan, also offers assorted encounters that paint detail to critical events (whether it be of actions or lessons learned) of others viewpoints that complement the title of his book, “Why we couldn’t win the war or the peace in Afghanistan”. As an award winning war reporter and expert on American and British military campaigns in Iraq and…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    This chapter contrasts greatly with the harsh war-time reality as it describes in vague terms those detached from the war making the decision to go to war. For the rest of the book however, the structure is chronological and follows the squad through this certain period of the…

    • 1781 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Novelist and Journalist Philip Caputo, has written fifteen books, including two memoirs, five books of general nonfiction and eight novels. A Rumor of War, has been published in fifteen languages, has sold two million copies since its publication in 1977 and is widely regarded as a classic in the literature of war. Philip Caputo has won ten journalistic and literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, Overseas Press Club Award, Sidney Hillman Foundation Award, Connecticut Book Award and many other well-known awards. Caputo’s writing began in 1968, when he joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune, serving as a general assignment and team investigative reporter until 1972. A Rumor of War is an autobiography about a man that fought in Vietnam…

    • 1022 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The theme of coming of age sparks knowledge into political realities within the short story “in the shadow of war” by Ben Okri and social realities within the short story “boys and girls” by Borden Deal. “In the shadow of war” takes place in West Africa in Nigeria during the Nigerian civil war. The narrator, being a young boy (Omovo) and the protagonist of the story has been told about the incoming eclipse by his father. When Omovo follows a mysterious veiled women into the woods, he witnesses the realities of war, which altered his whole Childhood and his understanding of political realities such as war. “Boys and Girls” takes place in Jubilee, Ontario, Canada in a small village, where the protagonist is a teenage girl who begins finding her true identity, however due to her race and her gender, she struggles to express her goals and cravings in her life due to social realities.…

    • 1599 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays