Daniel Huffman
Camille Mustachio
ENG 111- F19
16 November 2014
Identity: A Soldier’s Search
Upon entering into the Vietnam War, the young men who were drafted, or volunteered, found themselves in a brother-hood of like-minded soldiers who arrived in Vietnam as trained killers, but who had never before taken a life, and left as broken men that had more questions than answers. They lived together, learned together, killed together, and for some, like Philip Caputo, faced death together, in a way that haunted him for years to come. He sets the tone of his story, “A Rumor of War”, with “I was more prepared for death than I was for life,” and from there Caputo reflects back on how he was trained to kill, and, in turn, be prepared to die if need be (Caputo 3). Caputo uses his writings to reflect on his time before …show more content…
It is during this time that the order to display the bodies of four dead Viet Cong at his headquarters, in order for other soldiers to see and get used to the brutality in order to build up their mental capacity for death, arrived (Caputo173-79). He is unable to understand the validity behind this ruthlessness, leaving him with the realization of just how fragile human life is during war, and that bodies from either side are nothing more than score markers in the end. From page one until the last page, Caputo is searching for his sense of identity, and covers areas of his life in the war where it seems it is not just himself searching for his own self, but all of brothers-in-arms as well. His comrades and the military as a whole are used as a metaphor for this sense of identity. Many soldiers joined the marines in the hope of making a life for themselves; however, more often than not this was not the
Camille Mustachio
ENG 111- F19
16 November 2014
Identity: A Soldier’s Search
Upon entering into the Vietnam War, the young men who were drafted, or volunteered, found themselves in a brother-hood of like-minded soldiers who arrived in Vietnam as trained killers, but who had never before taken a life, and left as broken men that had more questions than answers. They lived together, learned together, killed together, and for some, like Philip Caputo, faced death together, in a way that haunted him for years to come. He sets the tone of his story, “A Rumor of War”, with “I was more prepared for death than I was for life,” and from there Caputo reflects back on how he was trained to kill, and, in turn, be prepared to die if need be (Caputo 3). Caputo uses his writings to reflect on his time before …show more content…
It is during this time that the order to display the bodies of four dead Viet Cong at his headquarters, in order for other soldiers to see and get used to the brutality in order to build up their mental capacity for death, arrived (Caputo173-79). He is unable to understand the validity behind this ruthlessness, leaving him with the realization of just how fragile human life is during war, and that bodies from either side are nothing more than score markers in the end. From page one until the last page, Caputo is searching for his sense of identity, and covers areas of his life in the war where it seems it is not just himself searching for his own self, but all of brothers-in-arms as well. His comrades and the military as a whole are used as a metaphor for this sense of identity. Many soldiers joined the marines in the hope of making a life for themselves; however, more often than not this was not the