62 pages • 2 hours read
Buzz WilliamsSpare Parts
Buzz WilliamsNonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2004A 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.
Key Figures
Buzz Williams
Williams is the author and main character of the book, which follows his journey not just from a college student to a combat veteran, as the subtitle states, but from a young child seeing his brother graduate the Marine Corps, to a high school principal who has dedicated his life to teaching young men and women.
Williams’s character is defined by conflict. His life is in constant conflict, from the time he realizes his big brother is a stranger, to his brother’s death, to his life in the Marine Corps, which includes live combat. Even after the war, he experiences conflict in the form of anxiety, nightmares, and the feeling of powerlessness.
Another defining aspect of his life is teaching. Even as a young Marine, Williams begins teaching others. He is constantly worried about the efficacy of the training programs and standard protocol, and constantly trying to better them, leading to numerous awards and promotions. His reserve company even creates a new position for him.
The Marine Corps also defines Williams’s life. After Lenny’s death, the Marine Corps becomes his surrogate family. His memoir, while occasionally calling out the racism, anger, and incompetence of the Marine Corps, is more a tribute to the men he served with than a criticism of the Corps. He argues that war is comprised of physical, emotional, and mental suffering, and, since Marines must be physically, emotionally, and mentally fit to fight, they sometimes suffer during training, and after war ends.
Ironically, it is these two defining aspects of his life that keep it in constant conflict. As a civilian, Williams is a teacher. As a Marine, though, he carries some of that teaching ability with him, and is forced to revert to anger to get through the drills. His civilian life stays at odds with his Marine life until he realizes he must leave the Marine Corps, but it is this journey—from civilian to Marine and back to civilian, through war and college and raising a family—that ultimately defines his life and shapes the narrative of the book.
Lenny Williams
Lenny is Buzz’s big brother, and the reason Williams joins the Marine Corps. Buzz looks up to Lenny, even after Lenny becomes “a stranger with a rank instead of a name” (x). Lenny teaches Buzz everything he knows about the Marine Corps, including how to fight. He is nicknamed after the “buzz cut” he gets to look more like Lenny, and eventually, after Lenny’s death, follows in Lenny’s footsteps.
Even though Lenny dies early on in the narrative, he is a major influence on Williams throughout the book. When Williams is drinking too much and not attending school, Big Ray reminds him of his commitment to become a Marine and follow in Lenny’s footsteps. When Williams contemplates getting out of the Marine Corps, he wonders what Lenny would have thought, and when he contemplates trying to get out of going to Operation Desert Storm, he visits Lenny’s grave. When Edsar dies in Iraq, and Williams hears “Taps” play, he remembers Lenny, though now he realizes that the Marine Corps has become the brother he lost when Lenny died. The Marine Corps takes Lenny’s place, offering Williams some comfort in his lost brother, and when Williams’s children are born, he thinks whether or not they will follow in his footsteps and join the Marine Corps, which means they would follow Lenny’s footsteps, as well.
Sergeant Moss
Moss is one of Williams’s closest friends in the Reserves. Several times, his lackadaisical attitude gets him into trouble, but he redeems himself. After Moss falls asleep in his LAV, Captain Cruz threatens to demote him, but Moss, in a firefight outside Kuwait City, performs commendably and is exonerated for his earlier mistakes. Moss however, does not see himself exonerated, and so leaves the Marine Corps after Desert Storm is over, showing how a soldier can see himself versus how others see him. Moss represents the idea that Marines don’t have to always be in conflict with one another to perform well. He is a kinder person than many of the other Marines that Williams comes in contact with. Williams clearly prefers Moss over Krause or Nagel or Koffmann, which demonstrates that without constant conflict, Marines perform just as well, or better, than those who serve under sergeants like Krause, who are always demeaning them.
Krause, Nagel, Poole, Morrison
All of these characters conflict with Williams in some way, and though all of them have some redeeming quality—Krause was the last “veteran” of Delta Company; Morrison saluted Williams after the war—they all exemplify the fact that the Marine Corps, which uses anger as fuel for training, is often harmed by that same anger.
Unlock all 62 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: