Chapter 2 Summary

After his training as an officer, Caputo receives his first command post in Okinawa, Japan with a group of forty Marines in the Third Marines Division. Instead of being greeted by men who have labored long and hard at a battlefront, he is greeted by men who play in the jungle by day and drink with the prostitutes by night.

Caputo tries to fit in with his platoon, men who have enlisted, trained and traveled together from the beginning. However, he feels more like a stranger in a strange land. Slowly, Caputo comes to the know some of the men, and he realizes they, like he, all have the desire to stop sitting around and get to the business of war.

This time spent is not wasted however, as Caputo does learn important lessons about command here. In particular, on one fateful day...