Philip Caputo’s first quote was from the beginning of the war, when everything was “wonderful” and Americans had no doubts. The second quote was only a year later, but a lot can change in a year, and Caputo saw this first hand.
The first quote was at a time when the American soldiers were told that A running Vietnamese was a fair target. no matter what. Even if they didn t have a weapon, they were to be shot at. This was hard for Caputo and others to understand at first, but they did what they had to do. During the beginning of the war, the American soldiers had this thought that nothing could bring them down; they were unvinsible, in their own eyes anyways. The psychological pain seemed like it was worse then the actual physical pain they endured in the beginning. At night with all of the noises of the forest, the men didn t know what or where things were coming from. The day time didn t seem much better. The sun and the thickness of the forest didn t make things any easier for the men. Many of the casulities were not from the VC directly, they were from the booby traps and the mines. When they did encounter the VC, the snipers anyways, most of the time they couldn t tell where they were firing from. Which in turn added to the psychological stress. The turning point for Caputo seems to be when the guy next to him was shot at. It was so close to Caputo and he realized then that anything could happen at any given time, nothing was certain in war.
During the year, as the war went on, many men lost their timid ness of killing innocent people. As one man put it, I mean the thing that bothers me about killing her is that it doesn t bother me . pg. 314. They now could kill village people and not feel any remorse. The soldiers became almost numb to the death that was taking part all around them. A big part in changing Captuo s attitude was when they found the hut with all of the pictures and personal belongings of the VC. This seemed to make the men realize that the VC were real people and had families just like them, that they were not just fighting machines.
In the end, Philip Caputo ended up getting charged with murder