SOURCE: Pratt, John Clark. “Yossarian's Legacy: Catch-22 and the Vietnam War.” In Fourteen Landing Zones: Approaches to Vietnam War Literature, edited by Philip K. Jason, pp. 88-110. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991.

In the following essay, Pratt explores parallels between Catch-22 and the experience of fighting in the Vietnam War.

At the outset, I must confess to some unintentional skullduggery. When going to Vietnam in the summer of 1969, I took with me a copy of Catch-22. From what I knew then about the war, I suspected that reviewing the plight of Yossarian from time to time might provide some continued reassurance that my world at war would not really be any more insane than Joseph Heller's.

I could not know, of course, that the colonel seated next to me throughout that long, ominous flight would comment on my choice of fiction and provide me with some early...