Summary Of A Rumor Of War By Philip Caputo

A Rumor of War A Rumor of War is a book bases on personal experiences of the author Philip Caputo during the Vietnam War. Philip served in the United States Marine Corps (USMC). He was deployed in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. When he came back he chose to become a journalist. He is renowned for his book A Rumor of war which he wrote 10 years after returning from war. The book starts with Philip’s narrating the reason he joined the United States Marine Corps (page 1) and ends with him being cleared of all charges by a court martial (356). All indications show that he had great pride in joining the USMC. He viewed the war as good thing. He was intrigued with the good side of the war. At this point he was young. He was encouraged by the
He was very disappointed with the superiors. He was also bored to a point of madness. The job of counting bodies also revealed to him the fact that the war was not about winning terrain or seizing positions rather to kill. All these factors made him want to work alone with his men, to fight the Vietnamese and become very brutal just like the Viet Cong. When he was reassigned to the rifle company, he did exactly that. In the third part of the book Caputo wrote that he had to face accusations of murder (342). He should indeed have been court-martialed. This is because he had done a lot of offences. He should have maintained discipline among his men. They then burnt a village called Ha Na, killing even innocent people. Caputo then ordered an unofficial mission to capture or kill two unarmed Vietnamese (297). This was also wrong and was another ground for being charged, all missions should have been approved by the superiors. During the mission, two marines killed two men including the informant who was trying to help the Americans. The two men were not the Viet Cong. This was also very wrong to kill unarmed suspects, further, they did not have sufficient information to carry out this mission.