If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home

Erik is the first and only friend O'Brien makes in basic training at Fort Lewis in Washington state. O'Brien and Erik share many traits: skepticism about the war, a love of poetry and other literature, a strong dislike of bullies. The drill sergeant, Blyton, notices their exclusive, devoted friendship, and he mocks them for being "college pansies" and "lezzies" (47).

Although Erik occupies an important place in O'Brien's book, he is only in O'Brien's company for a few weeks. At the end of basic training, the two of them go their separate ways. Erik enlists for an extra year so that he won't be assigned to basic infantry. O'Brien gambles, hoping he will also be assigned to something other than infantry, but without enlisting for the extra year. He loses, and so for the rest of the book, Erik appears only as O'Brien's correspondent, writing him thoughtful letters about poetry, modernism, ethics, and the meaning of the war. 

The leader of O'Brien's platoon, Mad Mark is "insanely calm" and his weapon of choice is a shotgun (81). The shotgun is an unusual choice for a battle weapon, because its range is so short, compared to a rifle. However, this demonstrates Mad Mark's nerve; he is so calm he can wait for the enemy to get within close range, before firing:"The shotgun itself was a measure of his professionalism, for to use it effectively requires an exact blend of courage and skill and confidence" (81).

Mad Mark is perhaps tall and thin; O'Brien describes his stride as "lanky" (81). He wears "tiger fatigues," a pattern of camouflage with irregular horizontal stripes, meant to blend into the jungle (81). They were not official Army issue, but many U.S. soldiers in Vietnam wore them. Mad Mark wears them, "not for their camouflage but for their look" (81).

O'Brien claims Mad Mark practices "an Aristotelian ethic" of war, treating war-making as a natural, necessary profession (82). He is brave but not excessively gung-ho, though it is Mad Mark who cuts an ear from a dead Viet Cong soldier.

Captain Johansen is courageous and blond: "Heroes somehow are blond in the ideal," O'Brien observes (144). Johansen leads Alpha Company well. He gives his men "some amount of reason to fight" in what is otherwise a pointless war, at least in O'Brien's eyes. He displays "the grace and poise a man can have under the worst of circumstances, a wrong war" (145).O'Brien looks up to Johansen, but he feels he falls short of Johansen's ideal: "I could not match my captain" (145).

Captain Johansen charges a Viet Cong soldier, running straight at him and then killing him when they are within "chest-to-chest range" (134). As courageous as that is, O'Brien decides that "Courage is more than the charge" (141). It is not enough to do the right and brave thing; the courageous person "must know what they do is courageous, they must know it is right" (140).Johansen displays this "wise endurance," and he also cares about courage. O'Brien decides this is a characteristic of the courageous: they care about what courage is and whether they have it. "I'd rather be brave than almost anything," Johansen admits to O'Brien (134).

Johansen leaves the company when he is rotated out, and the subsequent commanders are not his equal. "Losing him was like the Trojans losing Hector," O'Brien observes, comparing Johansen to the mythological Hector, a prince of Troy and a great warrior (145). In the epic poem the Iliad, Hector is head of the Trojan army and his death at the hands of Achilles is a terrible setback for the Trojans. Comparing Johansen to the later company commanders, O'Brien decides "he alone cared enough about being brave to think about it and try to do it" (145).

Captain Smith is a "short, fat ROTC officer" who "looks like a grown-up version of Spanky of [the early 20th-century children's serial] 'Our Gang'" (148). For O'Brien, Smith's portliness reveals his weak, unsoldierly character, and while he admits a fat man can be a good soldier, it's not easy: "No one trusts a green officer, and if he's short and fat and thinks he's a good soldier, he'd better be [World War II US General] Patton himself" (149).

Smith is no Patton. He leads Alpha Company on disastrous missions. The decisions to undertake those missions are made by Smith's superiors, but Smith doesn't help matters. He carps and complains, openly, about the futility of the higher-ups' missions, but this helps no one. He openly displays a lack of resolve without the power to do anything about changing the orders.

O'Brien has a sharp eye for Smith's weakness, even in small details. He observes how Smith puffs up at the prospect of being awarded a Purple Heart. When one of the men, McElhanney, is pushed underwater by a tank and then dragged out by the other soldiers, Smith ignores him, and O'Brien notices: "Captain Smith joined us. He joked, he didn't smoke, he didn't help with McElhanney, and he asked us what we thought" (154). Joking and soliciting opinions, Smith wants to be seen as regular guy among other regular guys, even while he anxiously polls his men about to do.

Major Callicles is physically imposing, resembling "an ex-light-heavyweight champ." He has "a head like a flattened 105 round [ammunition for an M1 howitzer], a thick, brown neck, bristling stalks of hair, and a disdain for pansies" (191). He is second in command to the battalion commander, Colonel Daud. Major Callicles has the unhappy duty of liaising with the press when the My Lai Massacre story breaks. His views on the massacre are numerous and contradictory. On the whole, he is a hard-nosed realist, like his namesake Callicles in Plato's Gorgias. Major Callicles thinks civilian deaths are just the price of war: "We're trying to win a war here," Major Callicles says. "Jesus, what the hell do you think war is?" (193). Major Callicles also has a judgmental, moralizing streak. He thinks the new casual mores in the U.S. Army are leading to its downfall, and he leads a moral crusade against "moustaches, prostitution, pot, and sideburns" (191). In the end, he loses it over his obsessions, setting a brothel near LZ Gator on fire. As punishment, he is relieved of his command. 

Colonel Daud is the battalion commander, "a black man, a stout and proper soldier" (106).In April, he orders Alpha Company to go on night patrols. The other officers view these as dangerous and futile, and they develop an elaborate subterfuge to avoid them. They pretend to go on night patrols, getting on the radio and issuing phony situation reports. This secret disobedience shows the low esteem Daud is held in; the junior officers feel Daud is "a greenhorn, too damn gung-ho" (106). Colonel Daud is also the one who orders Alpha Company to go fight in Pinkville, a dangerous, mine-laden area. He tells the men they'll survive, and for perspective, he mentions "if you're dumb, you'll die in New York City" (107). His advice is not welcome. 

One hot day, the soldiers relax in a village, allowing an old man to shower them. The man is about 70 years old, and blind; his hair is white, and his back is hunched from long years of stooping labor in the rice paddies. He seems happy to be of service to the GIs. He draws up water from the well to bathe them, saying, "Good water for good GIs" (99). Even after a soldier hurls a full carton of milk at his head, he continues to show a patient, subservient mien. 

One day, the men of Alpha Company anxiously attend a wounded female Viet Cong fighter. Her name is not known, and she exchanges no words with them, only groans. A soldier of Alpha Company has shot her, and the bullet has torn through one buttock and out her groin. She is bleeding severely and seems near death. The men comment on how pretty she is, and they stroke her "lustrous black" hair (114). They also impute somewhat supernatural or psychic powers to her; one man claims she must know she is near death and is willfully "trying to hurry and press all the blood out of herself" (113). She dies while in an evacuation helicopter.