Chapter 10, The Man at the Well Summary and Analysis

This chapter is the shortest in this memoir, merely a scene. Alpha Company comes upon a small village where an elderly blind Vietnamese farmer sits beside a well. The old man greets the soldiers, telling them again and again, "good water for good GIs". The old man ingratiates himself with the soldiers, laughs with them, and helps them to bathe, as if his survival depends on it. Even the children give back rubs and clean their weapons. But as the old man pours buckets of water over each man, a pot-bellied and bellicose soldier throws a carton of milk rations at the blind man's face.

After a momentary daze, the blind man regains his composure, smiles, and continues to pull water from the well to bathe the soldiers. Through allegorical narration...