Summary
The next chapter details Thomas's time in Vietnam. It begins with a flashback to him being cared for in a small village and dealing with the fallout of his time in combat. He is missing in action and suffering from serious wounds. At the same time, he thinks back to the beginning of the war and his gradual disillusionment with his platoon. The other men in his platoon murder civilians and desecrate the corpses of those they've killed. Thomas is disturbed by their behavior and feels as though he does not fit in with them.
Thomas, at one point, runs into Dwight, who claims that Thomas's father has been sleeping with Ruth. Disturbed by this accusation, Thomas begins to doubt Ruth's faithfulness to him. After witnessing many acts of cruelty, Thomas begins to believe that only evil exists in the world, as it is the only explanation for the terrible violence he encounters each day. Thomas befriends one other soldier, named Michael, who does not display the same harsh cruelty as everyone else.
One day, Thomas and the other men are sent on a recon mission. Thomas looks at the map of where they are and where they were supposed to be and says they are in the wrong place. The village is barely populated and there are only women and children. The other men ignore him and intend to burn the village and kill everyone there. Knowing that they will not listen to him, Thomas shoots the other men, except for Michael, who he pushes to safety. Michael runs away and Thomas drops his dog tags in a pit, to give the impression he is missing or dead. The story jumps back to the present, as Thomas ruminates. Dwight visits him at Witka's house, where Thomas now lives, and asks if he plans to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. Thomas remains uncertain, as he reflects on the horrors of his time in the army.
The story then shifts perspective and focuses on Lin. In the present day, in Vietnam, she is twenty-one and is preparing to go to America to meet Thomas, her father. She recollects her dim memories of him raising her in their village before being taken away in a helicopter. She doesn't know what he thinks of her or how much of this time he recalls. She thinks back on her mother's death and Thomas's leaving. After being left in her grandmother's care, Lin narrowly escapes the assault of another army, as she is saved by a young man who pulls her into a crowd of people.
She eventually makes her way to Ho Chi Minh City where she begs on the street for food. She is taken in by a florist and his wife who raise her like their own daughter. She begins to excel in school and the florist's wife, who grows increasingly attached to her, predicts she will have a bright future. Years pass and eventually she marries a man named Tran from her class at school, who is coincidentally the same young man who saved her all those years ago. She stands under the moonlight, looking at bats in the night sky, and feels resolved in her decision to seek out Thomas.
She flies to San Francisco and later arrives in Dark River. She rents a room and tries to figure out where Thomas is. Ruth learns, through talk around the reservation, that Lin has arrived and heads to the hotel to meet her. She tells Lin she can stay with her and that she will take her to Thomas. They take an immediate liking to one another. Ruth brings Lin to Thomas's house and introduces her.
Thomas says almost nothing to Lin, leaving her heartbroken and Ruth angry. Ruth takes Lin fishing and they talk about why Thomas has withdrawn so much. They visit again and Thomas asks her a little bit about her life. Later, Lin prepares to return home and Ruth tells her she is always welcome to come back. Lin says she will. In Vietnam, after her flight home, Lin has a happy reunion with her husband.
Analysis
War is a major theme in this section as the reader is finally given a glimpse of Thomas's time in the service. He is horrified by the behavior of the other soldiers, as they murder people without hesitation and desecrate corpses. Thomas feels isolated by his difference from them and disturbed by their cruelty. These moments highlight the way in which so much of his trauma stems from their actions and not entirely, or even mostly, from fights with enemy combatants. His experience is marked by violence that he cannot make sense of or see the point in. The soldiers around him don't appear to have a purpose beyond their violence. He is left feeling disillusioned and frightened. This thread in the book effectively shows how war both scars Thomas and allows these other men to enact unthinkable harm on Vietnamese civilians.
Loyalty is also a major motif in this section, as Thomas is forced to make a terrible choice. Thomas's platoon is dispatched to a village. Thomas thinks they are in the wrong location, based on his review of the map, and also finds that the village only has women and children. The other men in his platoon prepare to burn the village down and commit both rape and murder. Thomas recognizes that the only way to stop them is to shoot them, which he does, killing all of the men in his platoon except for his friend Michael, who was similarly averse to barbaric acts. Thomas wrestles with this moment as he feels like, in the context of the army, he was a traitor to his country. However, in a larger sense, he feels that he did what he had to do to prevent the massacre of innocent civilians. This pivotal moment in the text complicates the idea of loyalty, as it creates a situation in which there is no obvious answer and violence will occur either way.
War also appears as a major theme in Lin's chapters. Lin lives a life that is entirely shaped by conflict. She loses her mother to a landmine and her grandmother to a local insurrection. She is estranged from her father after he is taken back to America by the military. She is forced out of her home twice and has to beg on the street for food. Things improve when she finds a new family after being taken in by a florist and later falls in love with a man from her school. While her story is ultimately one of perseverance—through hard work and kindness she is able to make a happy life for herself—she suffers immensely. From a young age, she witnesses terrible things and is forced to endure many hardships. Her vulnerability as a child highlights how war most profoundly affects the most helpless members of society and has aftereffects that linger long after the seeming resolution of a single battle or war.
Family is another major component of this section of the book. Ruth immediately seeks out and helps Lin when she arrives in America. Despite the fact that Lin is the child that Thomas had with another woman, Ruth believes that Lin is as much a part of their family as Marco was. She wants Lin to meet Thomas and also experience the local culture. Ruth's nuanced view of the situation, and the sympathy with which she treats Lin, shows how she thinks of family. For Ruth, family is not directly related to blood relation or race but has more to do with the connections that bind people together. The kindness that she shares with Lin is reflective of her expansive idea of family and also directly relates to the care she gives to Thomas and the tribe as a whole.
These chapters of the book deal largely with aftermath. Lin's story shows the complex afterlife of the war, as she suffers in Vietnam long after Thomas's departure and the purported end of the conflict. Similarly, Thomas's inability to process his trauma shows how the war left him profoundly wounded and damaged, reliving moments long after they occurred. Finally, Ruth is also left to sort through the wreckage of both Thomas's and her own life, as she grieves for Marco and tries to help Lin connect to Thomas in his current state. All the characters attempt to heal but remain haunted by their painful pasts.
