Chapter 3, Beginning Summary and Analysis

In the summer of 1968, O'Brien is no longer an innocent and thoughtful young boy on the prairie. Lyndon B. Johnson is forgotten, Robert Kennedy is dead, and Richard Nixon is a scandal. In the midst of such change, O'Brien receives an induction notice from the draft board to report for basic training at the end of the summer. A recent college graduate, he spends his summer in debate and introspection with college friends and the townsfolk he grew up with. During this last period of calm before he is changed forever by the brutality of war, O'Brien drinks beer with the farm kids, plays pool and golf, takes long late-night rides around Lake Okabena where he once played "Japs and Krauts", and thinks deeply about the right and wrong aspects of the Vietnam War, the right of self-determination, the...