Chapter 12, Mori Summary and Analysis

Alpha Company comes across an injured Viet Cong female soldier. She is shot through the groin and writhing in pain as she bleeds to death. A few soldiers make lewd comments that because she is shot through the groin she is useless to them. The soldier who shot her laments having shot a woman. Other soldiers, including the medic, attempt to care for her. They give her some Kool-Aid from a canteen. They admire her beauty and fan her to chase the flies away. They remark at how calmly she dies, without the usual female hysterics.

This chapter illustrates the diversity of character among the soldiers in Vietnam. Some soldiers become vulgar and vicious, while others retain their humanity and the ability to feel ashamed for shooting a woman, even though she was an enemy combatant. Yet it is...