Lying Summary and Analysis

Lying is part of human nature, Marlantes claims in the opening of Chapter 6, and it is usually thought to be wrong to lie. In Vietnam, however, lying became normal for Marlantes and others. In fact, he explains, there were times when not lying seemed to be immoral.

Malantes gives the example of body counts. The higher officers who were in charge of the fighting measured success by the number of enemies killed compared to the number of American soldiers lost. The men on the front lines measured success differently. For them, survival was the measure of success.

Fighting was often chaotic and took place in thick jungle conditions where the position and number of the enemy were not clear. Part of Marlantes job as commander was to report the number of killed enemy fighters. His information was based largely on guesswork...