62 pages • 2 hours read
Buzz WilliamsA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Shortly after returning home, Williams is awakened by his mother turning on the light switch. Still experiencing the stress of training, Williams shouts at her. He explains that Marines often turn to anger when any emotion strikes them, and Williams has not yet assimilated to civilian life from training.
At his first weekend drill in the reserves, Williams still thinks like a recruit. As he meets the other members of his platoon, he is made fun of several times for his “new-join” attitude. In the field, Williams is first given guard duty, at which he impresses the commanding officer. Later he helps prep and launch mortar rounds with Lance Corporal Baker, who, after a time, lets him fire one. After the mistake of “hanging” the mortar round almost hurts him, he learns a valuable lesson about Marines—that even their egos can get in the way of training. He also vows to never unquestionably follow orders without thinking them through.
During a “hip-pocket” class, Williams, after learning proper procedure, begins teaching others. He gains recognition in the unit, and after creating a more efficient system for preparing rounds to be shot, Williams wins the honor of Outstanding Marine of the Drill.
On the way home, exhausted from almost no sleep, he falls asleep, coming close to dying in a car crash in the same way that his brother died.
Williams’s first drill weekend had taught him that the Marine Reservists he trained with were true warriors, but his second outlines the conflicts in the unit, and causes him to second-guess his commitment. He meets Lance Corporal Moss and Private First-Class Dougherty, both of whom he immediately likes, in the same way he dislikes Nagel and Draper. The first conflict arises when Sgt. Krause berates PFC Hurst for his haircut. Nagel forces Williams to cut Hurst’s hair, knowing he will do a poor job, and Hurst is accosted by other Marines the rest of the drill weekend.
His next drill is even worse: in the blowing snow, Williams learns that Hurst took his own life after the last drill. Williams knows he isn’t responsible but can’t help thinking how he made Hurst’s last days on earth worse than they already were. Later, out on patrol and walking through snow two feet deep, Williams comes close to freezing to death. When Moss finds him almost frozen and asks where his cold weather gear is, Williams replies that Nagel told them they didn’t need any.
During the next few drills Williams’s motivation to be a Marine wanes even more. Sgt. Krause’s ego makes him a poor leader. Nagel’s childish games cause unneeded suffering and anxiety. Finally, near despair, Williams calls his lieutenant and tells him of an old injury flaring up. When Captain Cruz hears of it, he sends a letter of reprimand, and when Williams goes to see Cruz, Moss helps Williams remember his motivation to be a Marine. He walks out with a slight reprimand and a newfound respect for both Moss and the Marine Corps.
Chapter 3 continues some earlier themes, especially those of training. It also introduces teaching. After seeing the inefficient training methods, Williams begins teaching. He learns all he can, then helps others. He creates a more efficient system for preparing rounds to be shot. He uses what he learned in his college teaching classes to help the Marines become better, a recurring theme throughout the book. Though his civilian world and military world will often clash, keeping him from being fully in either world, eventually Williams will combine the two, and these are the first steps.
The chapter also introduces the idea of reintegration, and the first clashes between Williams’s two worlds. Even his mother waking him up in the morning makes him angry, a clear sign he is still experiencing boot camp, and the anger instilled in him there. He finds the anger difficult to get away from, and, by the time he does let go of it a little, he is forced to attend weekend drills, and re-grasp the anger boot camp instilled in him.
Complementing the theme of reintegration is the theme of Williams’s place. Once back from boot camp, Williams feels out of place in the civilian world. When he attends his weekend drills, he feels out of place after a month in the civilian world. Throughout the book, Williams will constantly feel out of place: at recruit training, because he is seen as a “spare part”; back in the civilian world, after the anger and exhaustion and rigid discipline of recruit training; at weekend drills; and at college. Williams is forced to go from Marine to civilian to student to combat veteran, and his feelings of never fitting in denote just how difficult it is for soldiers to integrate into civilian life, after training, but especially after combat.
The chapter ends with Williams following Lenny’s footsteps again, this time almost to his death, when he crashes his car, a subtle questioning by Williams that perhaps Lenny died in the same way: exhausted from being a Marine.
Chapter 4 once again deals with Marine Corps training. Williams’s unit, with so many new members, is disorganized, and their training suffers. Williams focuses on training so much because it’s only through training that Marines can prepare for combat. Poor training equals poor combat skills, and their training is poor.
The chapter also continues the theme of conflict among Marines. The number and severity of the conflicts, and how the unit suffers because of them, suggest this is a common occurrence among Marines. Sergeant Krause and Nagel, because of their egos and attitudes toward other Marines, indirectly contribute to Hurst’s suicide, which is a way for Williams to tell readers that Marines must work together and overcome such conflicts, or they will all suffer for it.
There’s further conflict between the commanding styles of Moss and Krause. Krause, because of his former active-duty status and combat experience, looks down on Marines without as much experience as he has. Moss does not seem to take being a Marine as seriously as he should, but his attitude brings his unit together, instead of driving them apart. It’s clear that Williams prefers Moss’s style of leading over Krause’s.
Gear becomes another important theme of the book. In the snow, Williams doesn’t have the correct gear. This is directly tied to the conflict between Williams and Nagel, since Nagel is the one who tells him he doesn’t need cold weather gear. Nagel’s superior attitude, likes Krause’s, almost harms another Marine in the unit, so his leadership style is called into question again.
Finally, Williams mentions morale, and how it affects Marines. The poor training and constant conflict lowers the morale of the unit, further reducing their efficiency. Williams even begins to think about faking an injury to get out of the Marines, showing how deeply his morale has been affected. Williams sees things as a teacher does, and he wants to improve upon his unit’s training and erase the petty conflicts.
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