Chapter 31 Summary

Snake makes his way to the company officers tent and greets the clerk, Bugs. Bugs tells him that the Top is out but will be back soon, and offers him a cigarette. Snake tells him that he's got forty-seven days left in his term and wants to extend. Bugs can't believe his ears. He thinks Snake is crazy. Snake tells him simply to draw up the paperwork so that when the Top gets back it will be ready for him. Within an hour it is signed and done.

Chapter 31 Analysis

This chapter demonstrates the shear intensity of the enlisted men of Vietnam who have nothing at all to return home for. Snake is a man (barely, at age twenty) who has come from such a broken home that the only sense of home for him now are the men in his unit. They...