A Rumor of War Review
In A Rumor of War, Philip Caputo tells of his battle experience in the Vietnam War and how it changed him from an idealistic young man fresh out of officer's school, to a ruthless killer, to a disillusioned soldier sick with the waste of war. He arrives in Danang sure of a quick and certain American victory, but soon realizes that this war is far from the training he had received at Quantico. Caputo writes of the nagging terror of a war fought with snipers, mines, and booby traps and the alternating oppressive heat and rain of the Vietnam climate. He also tells of the human loss, both physical and emotional, that these tactics and conditions exacted. In relating his experiences in ...
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his humanity, Caputo unflinchingly documents his own transformation from a young man eager for the test of war to a cold-hearted killer motivated solely by raising the enemy casualty count. As his relationship with Vietnam grows, it is revealed to the author as a place of corruption. "Everything rotted and corroded quickly over there: bodies, boot leather, canvas, metal, morals" (229). He tells of his own loss of morals, a result of the futile missions to eliminate elusive guerilla enemy, the days of uncomfortable waiting laced with momentary terrors of sniper attack, and the mounting pressure from his superiors to show something was being gained with the ever-increasing American losses. A turning point in the book is when Caputo allows the platoon under his command to burn a village to the ground with only marginal justification. He describes the experience in this way:
Desperate to get to the hill, we rampaged through the rest of the village, whooping like savages, ...
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thoughts over and over throughout his tour of duty. He does get his chance for revenge but comes close to paying for this act the rest of his life.
In a fit of overzealousness, he sends his men out to capture two men suspected to be VC spies based on testimony from an informant. But they capture the wrong men, and one is killed. Ironically, the dead man was the informant. Brought up on murder charges, and facing a court-marshal, the penultimate chapter of the book documents how close Caputo came to paying for that moment where he allowed the darkness of his heart overwhelm him.
The book records numerous examples of the inhumanity of man toward other men. This result is most ...
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A Rumor of War Review. (2015, October 8). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/A-Rumor-of-War-Review/105058
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"A Rumor of War Review." Essayworld.com. October 8, 2015. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/A-Rumor-of-War-Review/105058.
"A Rumor of War Review." Essayworld.com. October 8, 2015. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/A-Rumor-of-War-Review/105058.
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