Going After Cacciato: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

It is August, and Paul Berlin’s platoon travels to Chu Lai for a “stand-down” that will last one week. The soldiers relax, playing games and swimming. They sleep late and write letters to their families.

On the soldiers’ last day of stand-down, Eddie, Doc, Paul Berlin, and Oscar walk to the 82nd Commo Detachment, where the soldiers keep the army’s radio communication system. There, the soldiers place calls to their friends and families in the United States. Eddie’s call connects first, after nearly an hour of trying. The technicians take him to a soundproof room, where he talks for some time. Berlin watches him, wondering whom he could be talking to. When Eddie walks out of the soundproof room, he says that he’d been talking to his mother.

The next soldier to place a call is Doc, followed by Oscar. They both walk out of the soundproof rooms looking choked up, as if their calls have been tragic. Berlin feels mature as he looks at Doc and Oscar—he and his friends are “genuine war buddies,” now that they’ve shared emotions.

Berlin goes to place his call. Inside the soundproof room, he places a call to his mother. As he waits for the call to go through, he imagines his mother greeting him cheerfully and telling him that Berlin’s father is “putzing” around the house, trying to repair things. Berlin tries to think of something to say to his mother, but can’t think of anything about being a soldier that doesn’t sound horribly forced. Eventually, he decides that he’ll ask his mother if she’s quit smoking yet—a running joke in his family, since his mother never quits smoking. All this goes on in Berlin’s head as he waits for the call to connect. But nobody picks up the phone on the other end. Secretly, Berlin is relieved. He leaves the soundproof room and rejoins his fellow soldiers, who pat him on the back and say, “Tough luck.”