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Philip Caputo

The narrator and the main personality of the book.

Viet Cong

Name applied to the group of antagonists in the book.

Captain Neal

He sleeps peacefully at night in a tent half a mile away from the line. Unlike other leaders who are out there in the same conditions as their men, he appears to have a fairly cushy existence.

Chaplain Ryerson

He forces Caputo to consider the wasted lives of all those who are killed and all those who are left to pick up the pieces afterward.

Corporal Sullivan

Killed while filling canteens on the river, he is the first casualty of the platoon.

Jose Gonzales

Wounded when a small, antipersonnel mine blows off his left foot, he is the first casualty of war the men see personally.

Lance Corporal Crowe

Nicknamed Pappy by the younger men, he shoots the young boy that had been...

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