Chapter 10 Summary and Analysis

Kay sees Phil off to boot camp, knowing that she will join him as a camp follower wherever he lands. The first stop is Atlantic City, New Jersey, where she rents a room on the boardwalk. Phil is ambivalent about the army, disliking the sadism, ineptitude, incompetence, negligence and foul language, but reveling in the camaraderie. He is next sent to radio school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Kay follows to a town swollen to 300% its prewar population by military families. Both are miserable at the bottom of the heap, after having lived lives of privilege. Kay grows frustrated studying typing and shorthand but volunteers to roll bandages for the Red Cross. She is surprised at the kindness of small-town Middle America towards strangers. She joins the "Mrs. Private" club formed by soldiers' wives, many of whom are pregnant and...