Chapter 1, Part I Breathing In Summary and Analysis

Michael Herr works in South Vietnam as a war correspondent. His apartment in Saigon, capital city of South Vietnam, contains a wall map left behind probably by a French soldier before the United States became involved, at first slightly after the First Indochina War ended in 1954, and then more heavily in the 1960s. Herr lays out a few of the basic characteristics of the war: War has been the way of life for the country over decades of time; wiped-out enemy units keep reappearing in full strength; and, the enemy uses ground cover effectively. One primary American tactic is to destroy this cover.

Part I opens with an account of drug use among the soldiers, given to them by medics. One kind, Dexedrine, is an amphetamine to keep the soldier awake and alert...