How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I had gone through basic training just fine until the end when we had to go under live fire. The noises shook you, made you want to stop and hide.
Now it was different. Now the sound swelled in my consciousness like a dull headache. It kept coming and coming, day and night. Sometimes I felt as if the sounds were inside me somehow. And there were the times, I never wanted to mention them to anyone else, that I heard the sounds at night when it was very quiet, and no one else heard them. (13.32-33)
Now this is definitely a sign of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is an affliction a lot of soldiers suffer from, sometimes long after they're in combat. It's possible that Perry will sometimes hear bombing and gunfire even if he survives and returns to the US. Not fun.
Quote #8
The wounded man screamed for a while, then begged for a while, then went back to screaming. We turned away from him, tried to shut him out of our minds. (13.138)
It might seem cruel of the other soldiers to turn away from a wounded man and let him die alone, but to them, it's survival. They don't want to look at what could be their future, because that might make them completely break down. Yeesh.
Quote #9
I thought about what Peewee had said. That I had better think about killing the Congs before they killed me. That had better be my reason, he had said, until I got back to the World. Maybe it was right. But it meant being some other person than I was when I got to Nam. Maybe that was what I had to be. Someone else. (16.128)
Perry has been more or less driving himself crazy trying to figure out whether killing Vietcong soldiers is the right thing to do. But here's the dilemma: he can't worry too much without being in danger of getting killed himself. Maybe he's right that in war, you have to be a different version of yourself.