Chapter 3 Summary

Hodges is processed and briefed in Da Nang the next day. He spends the night on a smelly cot in a small tent while a machine gun fires all night long. The next morning, Hodges and two others take a convoy from Da Nang to An Hoa. There, Hodges is given his jungle utilities and combat gear. He sleeps that night in a tent with three other Lieutenants and awakes to the sound of bombs. One had gone off not fifty feet from where he lay. At first he is excited about actually being in a war, but when a man's hand plummets through the air and lands near him and he hears shouts that the First Sergeant is dead, he's not so excited anymore.

The second night Hodges is awakened by a company clerk to watch the battle taking place in what...