Catch-22 Chapter 36 Summary

  • The chaplain, hearing about the increase in missions, prays for the safety of his friends.
  • Then he realizes that praying for them is a form of favoritism and that isn't fair to the other men, so he stops praying.
  • Twelve men are killed in the mission.
  • The chaplain goes to see Yossarian, but when he spies him in the briefing room, he looks completely depressed.
  • The chaplain realizes this means Nately has been killed.
  • He takes Nately's death particularly hard.
  • Just as he is about to comfort Yossarian, he is ordered to come away with a colonel he has never seen before. He gets into a staff car and is driven away.
  • They take him to a dilapidated cellar and interrogate him.
  • They ask him to write his name in his own handwriting. After he does, they accuse him of lying. They say that that isn't his handwriting.
  • To prove their point, they show him the letter that Yossarian censored that says at the bottom, "I long for you tragically. A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army." The chaplain denies writing it. It was actually written by Yossarian.
  • The colonel and his men set out instruments of torture and scare the chaplain even further as the inquisition continues.
  • They accuse him of not being Baptist, of being Washington Irving, of stealing a plum tomato from Colonel Cathcart, of trying to unload this hot tomato on Colonel Korn, of not believing in God, and of opposing Sergeant Whitcomb's idea to send out form letters of condolence.
  • They charge him guilty on all counts.
  • Then they tell him to leave while they decide his punishment.
  • The chaplain is incredulous that they would just let him walk out, but they do.
  • The chaplain tries to confront Colonel Korn about the mission that morning. When he is laughed off, he asks permission to bring his protests to General Dreedle.
  • Colonel Korn uncharacteristically gives his permission. Then we learn that General Dreedle has been replaced by Peckem.
  • This dismays the chaplain because he doesn't even know General Peckem.
  • Colonel Korn also tells the chaplain that Dr. Stubbs, the doctor who was grounding all men who had completed seventy missions, was transferred.
  • Everyone will have to fly eighty missions. Everyone's life is getting worse by the day.