Chapter 13 Summary

With the start of the monsoon season in September comes an increase of three to four times the numbers of the dead. Caputo's old battalion ships out to be replaced by eleven hundred men fresh from the United States. Within six months, approximately a third of them would be killed or wounded.

Still the war continues. Headquarters moves its location to the Dai-La pass and more numbers are greased in on the scoreboard of deaths. When Walter Levy, a man who trained at Quantico with Caputo, is listed as another casualty of war, Caputo once again struggles to find meaning in the war and the deaths it is bringing.

Chapter 13 Analysis

The war has turned from a backyard brawl to a full out death trap for the American soldiers. Their death tolls are rising far more quickly than the Viet Cong's numbers, and...