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In light of his new position as an assistant adjutant—an administrator whose job it is to report on dead marines and dead Viet Cong—Caputo nicknames himself “Officer in Charge of the Dead,” and even makes himself a name plate with the designation out of cardboard. Caputo’s self-designated status symbolizes his growing feelings of uselessness in his leadership position and skepticism surrounding the validity of the war’s cause and if it’s a worthy sacrifice of so many young lives. Caputo finds the reporting demoralizing and is especially dismayed when he is responsible for reporting the deaths of PFC Peter Devlin, Lance Corporal James Bryce, and PFC Lockhart—all men from his former platoon. His morbid work takes on new significance after he has a dream in which he is in command of all of the deceased soldiers from his old platoon. He feels helpless in stopping the imminent deaths, a perspective that contrasts markedly from his previous confidence, which made him believe that the war would end quickly, and that most of the soldiers would return home intact. However, his confrontations with violence, in which he sees how modern weaponry can mutilate a human body, force him to grapple with mortality and question the point of the war.
Officer in Charge of the Dead Quotes in A Rumor of War
The A Rumor of War quotes below all refer to the symbol of Officer in Charge of the Dead. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter Nine Quotes
The corps would go on living and functioning without him, but it was aware of having lost something irreplaceable. Later in the war, that sort of feeling became rarer in infantry battalions. Men were killed, evacuated with wounds, or rotated home at a constant rate, then replaced by other men who were killed, evacuated, or rotated in their turn. By that time, a loss only meant a gap in the line that needed filling.
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Caputo reflects on Sullivan’s death, which is immediately felt by Caputo’s former comrades in C Company. Though the men try their best to distance themselves from Sullivan’s memory so that they will not be emotionally overwhelmed by the loss and its implications for them, they are hurt and miss his presence deeply. In this passage, Caputo observes how the soldiers become increasingly desensitized to death as the war progresses. The swift rotation of soldiers who replace others that have been killed or injured mirrors a rotating machine that produces fresh soldiers to replace those that have exhausted their capacity to Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Ac
Chapter Ten Quotes
The interesting thing was how the dead looked so much alike. Black men, white men, yellow men, they all looked remarkably the same. Their skin had a tallowlike [sic] texture, making them appear like wax dummies of themselves; the pupils of their eyes were a washed out gray, and their mouths were opened wide, as if death had caught them in the middle of a scream.
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Caputo has started his job as the casualty reporting officer, where he verifies body counts, identifies soldiers, and handles matters related to insurance and burial specifications. The job, which requires Caputo to have a more detached and objective view of death, disabuses him of his association of death with tragic romance. Here, it does not matter how each man died, for every corpse appears the same. Death becomes a great equalizer, collapsing differences in race, for example. Due to the countless bodies that Caputo sees each day, most of whom he does not know, they appear less real for him Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi ne
Chapter Twelve Quotes
That night, I was given command of a new platoon. They stood in formation in the rain, three ranks deep. I stood front and center, facing them. Devlin, Lockhart, and Bryce were in the first rank, Bryce standing on his one good leg, next to him the faceless Devlin, and then Lockhart with his bruised eye sockets bulging. Sullivan was there, too, and Reasoner and all the others, all of them except me, the officer in charge of the dead. I was the only one alive and whole, and when I commanded […] they faced right, slung their rifles, and began to march. They marched along, my platoon of crippled corpses, hopping along on the stumps of their legs, swinging the stumps of their arms, keeping perfect time while I counted cadence. I was proud of them, disciplined soldiers to and beyond the end. They stayed in step even in death.
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Caputo has just had a dream in which he imagines that all of the dead marines he once knew are resurrected and join his new platoon. In his dream, they appear to him as they did when he identified their bodies in his new role as an assistant adjutant in charge of reporting on the war dead. The former soldiers’ grotesque and rotting bodies contrast with the liveliness of their movements. The scene that Caputo sets is similar to that of a zombie film, and there is something both macabre and comical about it. However, the morbidity of the scene Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asper
Chapter Thirteen Quotes
So much was lost with you, so much talent and intelligence and decency […] There were others, but you were the first and more: you embodied the best that was in us. You were a part of us, and a part of us died with you, the small part that was still young, that had not grown cynical, grown bitter and old with death. You courage was an example to us […] You died for the man you tried to save […] You were faithful. Your country is not. As I write this, eleven years after your death, the country for which you died wishes to forget the war in which you died […] But there are a few of us who do remember because of the small things that made us love you—your gestures, the words you spoke, and the way you looked. We loved you for what you were and what you stood for.
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In this passage, Caputo is recalling Levy’s death and thinking about all of the qualities they shared in common, as well as the ways in which Caputo hoped to become more like Levy. To emphasize to the reader his deeply felt sense of intimacy with Levy, Caputo launches into the epistolary form, addressing his dead friend directly. The effect on the reader is akin to listening in on an intimate conversation or a letter between dear friends, not unlike Caputo’s previous experience of overhearing the emotional conversation between PFC Esposito and Corporal Parker. Unlike the conversation between Esposito and Parker, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum volupta
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Officer in Charge of the Dead Symbol Timeline in A Rumor of War
The timeline below shows where the symbol Officer in Charge of the Dead appears in A Rumor of War. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter Ten
...it on a piece of cardboard, and tacks it to his desk: “2LT P.J. Caputo. Officer in Charge of the Dead .”
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Chapter Twelve
...there, too. In fact, everyone who stands in formation is dead. Caputo is, indeed, the Officer in Charge of the Dead . He wakes from this nightmare, afraid and soaking in his sweat. A mortar tube...
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