In Pharaoh's Army is Tobias Wolff's memoir about his service in the Vietnam War. As he explains, he is writing mostly for himself, to complete some progress he's been making in himself. A huge part of Wolff's self-doubt surfaced during his service because the dangers were elevated, revealing just where Wolff's deficiencies lay. In retrospect, Wolff exercises self-criticism as a means of regaining autonomy for himself in the present from who he used to be. Those events no longer need to hold power over him. During the writing process Wolff observes how he experienced healing and catharsis by the very act of writing, of giving voice and narrative to his past experiences, many of which he had deliberately ignored for years.
Narrated in the first person, the memoir is a collection of vignettes arranged without respect for chronology. Wolff shifts between the time leading up to his deployment and his actual time in My Tho. He grows comfortable with the locals, often relying upon their generosity and knowledge to get food or other resources. Although Wolff is a cynic, he forms numerous relationships with his fellow soldiers. They come and go throughout the narrative, but their impressions remain in Wolff's memory forever. He is a member of the Green Berets, an elite squad, but Wolff expresses shame for having taken advantage of that position to exercise unnecessary violence and pride. Upon his return home, Wolff attempts to make amends with his distant father, but the conversation is largely unfruitful. The approval Wolff seeks is from himself, but he directs the longing at his neglectful dad, even though he does possess the experience to recognize his father's poor ethics.
In re-examining his memories, Wolff exercises a critical voice. He observes how, in his younger years, he took advantage of people less intelligent or less experienced than himself simply because he could. Although Wolff must criticize himself as a result of his personal growth in years since his service, he often neglects to observe in his narrative how the intense pressure and danger of the war influenced him during that season, or even how his relationship to his father dictated the emotional tools which Wolff had access to in his younger years. Wolff correctly criticizes his younger self for immaturity and selfishness, but he does so because he needs to place distance between those painful memories and his present situation.
