A Rumor of War: Chapter Three Summary & Analysis

Glen Lemmon picks up the phone to take a call from Lieutenant Colonel Bain about the impending deployment. Meanwhile, Philip Caputo and Murph McCloy are on the terrace of the Officers’ Club, drinking beer and admiring the view of the China Sea. McCloy takes a call from Lemmon and happily announces that they are going to war. Caputo is skeptical after nearly a month of rumors, so he calls Lemmon himself and receives assurance that the news is true. Caputo runs back to his room at BOQ, startling his roommate, Jim Cooney, and begins to pack.

The scene at the battalion area is chaotic. Supplies are being prepared and the air is filled with the sounds of “squawks, bleeps, and static hisses” that come from the radio tests. At 8:00 P.M., Peterson summons his platoon leaders and staff NCOs to the company office for a briefing. He hands out copies of a map and points out to the group where Da Nang is. He says that the Communists have “launched a dry-season offensive in I Corps [a military region] and the Central Highlands and threatened to cut South Vietnam in half.” The ARVN are losing a battalion a week, and U.S. bases are in danger of another attack like the one at Pleiku.

Captain Peterson emphasizes that the battalion is going to provide security and nothing else. Their purpose is to free the ARVNs to fight because it is “their war.” When the commanders leave the office, they pass word to their platoons of the impending deployment. A convoy forms shortly thereafter. Riflemen board the assembled six-bys. Sergeant Colby waves good-bye as the convoy begins to move out, as though he is not a part of the mission. He has failed to make it back to the base on time, due to having been with a prostitute.

Caputo gets into a six-by with Gonzalez’s squad. They ride along for an hour or so, sharing “harsh jokes and laughter.” They then roll into the air force base and head toward their assigned C-130s. Caputo and his “forty-odd men share space with several large crates and a communications jeep.” Some men are so tired that they try to sleep on the crates, while others sleep on the deck of the plane, “using each other as pillows.” They endure yet another wait onboard, and there are more rumors of a cancellation. Then, the crew boards, hands out instructions, and prepares the aircraft for take-off. The ride across the China Sea lasts for five hours. Caputo watches James Bryce sleep. His stillness and half-open mouth are “a prefiguration of the death that would be his six months later.”

They arrive during a “hot, damp, and cloudy” afternoon. Caputo joins the rest of Charley Company, with Lemmon’s platoon on the right, Bruce Tester’s on the left, and Caputo’s in the center. Some of Lemmon’s men are talking excitedly about how their plane had been shot at. News of Three-Nine’s landing exposes their humiliation. They charged up the beach, as though preparing for Nazis at Normandy, and were met instead by the mayor of Da Nang and a group of schoolgirls who “placed flowered wreaths” around their necks.

Charley Company is assigned to the southern sector of the perimeter. The lines of the sector are “anchored on the left on an asphalt road” leading into Da Nang and “on the right with A Company.” The MLR is opposite the dirt road and in front of them. The MLR is manned by the ARVN, which they will relieve in a few days. Peterson has told them that the rice paddies and villages to the south are likely to be the point from which the Viet Cong would attack. So, if the VC hit, C Company would be hit first. To protect themselves, the soldiers dig foxholes and fill up sandbags. Caputo applies everything that he has learned at Quantico, including using machine guns to cover the front.

Vietnam does not look like a war-torn country to Caputo. The “Communist stronghold” from which they are likely to be attacked looks to him like “a tropical park.” He watches a group of young girls walk by, wearing silk trousers and “filmy” ao dais. At dusk, having neither heard a shot nor fired one, they create places to sleep for the night. The company also has its first meal since the previous day’s breakfast in Okinawa. Everyone is filthy after a day of digging trenches in the mud. They wonder where this war is that they’ve been hearing so much about. Suddenly, they hear something explode in a nearby paddy field. Things calm down when they find out what happened: a dog had wandered into a minefield and got itself blown up.

At nightfall, twenty-five percent of the troops set their watch alarms for 4:00 A.M. They all keep their helmets and flak jackets on. Around nine or ten that night, snipers begin to fire on them, and the marines realize that much of this war will occur at night. The bullets seem to come out of nowhere and go nowhere; there are few of them, and no one is hit. The landscape, however, takes on a sinister character, and bushes begin to look like men. Still, the battalion cannot return fire, unless ordered to by a staff NCO or an officer. The mosquitos that swarm the area temporarily pose a bigger problem.

To escape from the torture of the mosquitos, Caputo regularly checks on the platoon lines. He jumps into Guiliumet and Paulson’s foxhole. They are nervous after having nearly been hit. Caputo looks out into the darkness and perceives no danger; still, he knows that a sniper is out there somewhere. He climbs out of the hole and continues his rounds. Later, a quick fire-fight breaks out about a thousand yards past their perimeter. They hear the thumping of grenades and mortars, as well as artillery booming in another battle a short distance away. These sounds confirm that there is, indeed, a war on and the Viet Cong are waiting for them.