How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"We'll set up here, Sergeant." Lieutenant Gearhart's voice stiffened.
"We ain't got no cover here, sir." Sergeant Simpson looked at Gearhart.
"There's cover there," Gearhart said. He pointed to a small trench along the side of the paddy. There were thin bushes next to it. Nothing that would stop a bullet. "We'll put sandbags behind the bushes."
"You gonna get some people killed over here!"
"Sergeant, I know what I'm doing." Gearhart took a step toward Simpson. "Now deploy the men." (13.50-54)
Gearhart forces his men into a visible, dangerous position just to show that he's the one in charge. Primadonna, much?
Quote #8
"How many you think we got?" he asked. "I know you can't be sure, just give me a number."
I didn't know what to say. A picture of the paddies came into my mind.
"Twenty? Thirty?"
"Maybe not that many, sir?"
"Maybe, but it could have been."
"It could have been, sir." (14.55-60)
This here is called picking your battles. Perry knows they didn't kill anywhere near thirty people, but also that Stewart always amps up their body count. Instead of arguing with him and making an enemy, he goes with the flow and agrees to the hypothetical thirty kills. After all, Stewart would record a high body count either way.
Quote #9
"He found out that Captain Stewart is volunteering Alpha Company all over the place. He asked him what he's doing that for, and Captain Stewart said that if he didn't want to fight he shouldn't have extended."
What Jamal said went down hard. We didn't mind doing our part because it had to be done, even though we always didn't have the answers to why we were doing it.
But nobody wanted to go out and risk their lives so that Stewart could make major. (15.94-96)
It's one thing to do your part in the war. It's another to volunteer all the time, everywhere. Kind of sounds like a death wish. And the worst part is, the soldiers aren't doing the volunteering themselves: they're being volunteered. There's nothing they can do about it.