A Rumor of War: Chapter Seven Summary & Analysis

The next operation takes place in a desolate area south of Da Nang and lasts for four days. The marines attempt, yet again, to trap the VC between two rifle companies. They are hit with automatic-weapons fire that nearly kills Peterson. The next morning, C Company is airlifted out to make a helicopter assault in the south. They are airborne for less than ten minutes before they head toward the LZ. A few bullets ring out—enough to make the soldiers worry, due to being trapped in the helicopters. Once on the ground, the men head toward the woods. Tester’s platoon is the last to arrive. The VC turn the rifles on the entering aircraft but none are hit. A column forms and marches into the brush. Peterson orders Caputo to halt and head back to the LZ with his men to assault some VC up on the ridge.

Heading back, they cover about a hundred yards when machine guns and grenades begin to fire. Sixty or seventy yards ahead, Lemmon’s men move up the ridge. Sergeant Johnson’s mortar crew runs out into the middle of the LZ and sets up a tube to hit the VC with mortars. Peterson orders Caputo’s and Tester’s platoons to move up and sweep around the guerrilla’s flank. The bombardment then lifts, and C Company is ordered to move down into the swamp—they are to kill any remaining guerrillas and look for enemy corpses. After fifteen minutes of searching they find their first body. Its brains are spilling out of a giant hole in its head.

They learn how the VC whose brains were blown out died: the mood of the company had turned savage, and one of the marines, PFC Marsden, shot the man in the face with a pistol. However, there are two versions of the incident: that the VC was already dead when Marsden shot him, or that the marine fired in self-defense after the VC attempted to throw a grenade. Marsden does not seem to know why he shot the man. Either way, they are fulfilling General Greene’s command to kill as many VC as possible.

A second corpse is found and, along with PFC White, Caputo finds a third. They see a sliver of blood, “flecked with bits of flesh and intestine” in a patch of brown grass. Caputo draws his pistol and they march through the marsh. The blood trail grows thicker. Caputo stumbles forward and nearly trips over the VC. He is lying on his back with an arm thrown over his chest. His eyes are wide open, staring at a sky he can no longer see. The enemy soldier appears to be about eighteen or nineteen. He has no identification on him and no photographs or letters. Caputo thinks of how this will disappoint those at intelligence, but that the lack of identification makes it easier for Caputo to think of him simply as a “dead enemy” rather than a “dead human.”

The company reaches the base of Hill 270. Marines rush toward a column of smoke, which come from a burning case of papers—the remaining VC destroyed documents before fleeing. The marines stamp out the fire but fail to salvage anything. Caputo assembles the platoon, and the forty men start walking toward the stream bed. While walking alone, Rivera holds up his hand and drops to one knee. He signals for Caputo to approach. He points to a sampan resting atop a platform. There are items beneath the platform, including clips of small-arms ammo. Rivera whispers that a VC soldier cannot be far, if he is around. Caputo tells Rivera that he will organize a fire-team to see what is around the bend. He tells Rivera to keep an eye out for the VC and to shoot him if he shows up.

Six marines move around the bend while the rest of the platoon waits. Caputo sees the outline of a hut, which sits on poles on a small base camp. The marines move in, looking for trip wires and booby traps. Bits of equipment and documents are scattered around the camp. As the marines sift through them, they find notebooks filled with neat, numbered paragraphs, which appear to be operations orders. Another marine calls out to Caputo; he has found “a small packet of letters and photographs of wives or girlfriends. While the marines look at them, Caputo feels conflicting emotions. These keepsakes give the VC a humanity that Caputo doesn’t wish to acknowledge. PFC Lockhart says what many of them are thinking: “They’re just like us, lieutenant. It’s always the young men who die.”

The marines set fire to the camp, then they run into Sergeant Loker. The sergeant reminds Caputo that Peterson does not want the marines to burn down any more villages. Caputo corrects him and says that it is a base camp and not a village; Loker shrugs. He then tells Caputo about how he found a marine named Hanson trying to cut the ears off of dead VC. He figures that Hanson got the idea to take ears as souvenirs from the Australian soldiers who did the same thing. Caputo compares PFC Marsden’s act, which he finds understandable, to that of Hanson, which makes no sense to him at all.

By counting arms and legs and dividing by four, the marines estimate that eight VC were killed. Caputo gives Peterson a report of their excursion to the VC base camp and hands him the documents he found, much to Peterson’s pleasure. Peterson then orders the platoon to set up a post on a hill at the western edge of the marsh, where they are ordered to look out for A Company. They have captured five prisoners in a fire-fight near Hoi-Vuc. Caputo’s platoon is exhausted by the time it reaches the top of the three-hundred-foot hill. Caputo becomes aware of the difference in them: they have taken part in their first fire-fight and have seen violent death for the first time. Their boyhoods are now behind them. Having shed blood, they are now men.

The marines remain in shock at the mutilation that modern weapons can cause. They are all accustomed to seeing human bodies intact in coffins. There is recognition now in the human body, supposedly “the earthly home of an immortal soul,” as “only a fragile case stuffed full of disgusting matter.” For Caputo, the sight of mutilation causes him to lose faith in the Catholic narratives of his childhood.