If I Die in a Combat Zone: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

O’Brien thinks the name “Pinkville” sounds “county-fairish” for such a dangerous, heavily-occupied region covered in mines, though its named for its pink color on a military map marking it as a “built-up area.” The My Lai villages are scattered throughout the area, mostly ruined and empty, though hostile villagers still live in some areas. Alpha Company had also been in Pinkville in January, a month before O’Brien arrived and less than a year after the My Lai Massacre in My Lai 4. Alpha Company took heavy losses then and developed a strong hatred toward any “Oriental” person by the end of that mission.

When Alpha Company returns to My Khe in May, they immediately walk into a Viet Cong ambush. The villagers give no warning or hint. Gunfire sprays out of the bushes and a grenade kills the man next to O’Brien. O’Brien screams and takes cover until it ends. Afterward, Alpha Company moves north toward the My Lai villages. They question villagers about the Viet Cong as they go, but the villagers never say anything and let Alpha Company walk into ambush after ambush. At one point, the whole company has to sprint across a 75-meter rope bridge, one at a time, as unseen snipers take potshots at them.

At night, Viet Cong shoot mortars, and Alpha Company spends the whole night crawling on its knees through rice paddies to avoid the explosions. Alpha Company grows so frustrated at never being able to find the “phantom Forty-Eight Viet Cong Battalion,” but constantly being attacked by them, that they start setting fire to villages. The fire feels vindicating, an expression of their own hatred. O’Brien recalls that when the mine blew Chip and Tom to pieces, American soldiers started beating the nearest Vietnamese people at hand: two terrified women.

O’Brien recalls that the soldiers collected Chip and Tom’s strewn body parts into bags while officers called an airstrike on the village. They all knew that women and children were in there as they watched it burn to the ground, but after losing their friends, the Americans no longer cared. Presently, in Pinkville, Mad Mark perches a sniper rifle on a rock and shoots a farmer—but he tells O’Brien to report that they’ve hit a Viet Cong soldier. O’Brien swallows and follows orders. A mine obliterates an American’s leg the next day, and two more men are hit by grenades the day after.

Alpha Company marches onward, bedraggled and falling apart. The officers decide to head toward the ocean and rest. Some men swim while others set up a perimeter. O’Brien receives mail telling him that his girlfriend has a new European boyfriend, his parents are worried for him, and his siblings are fine. Viet Cong soldiers shoot at the Americans from the surrounding bushes. Three more men are hit and removed by helicopter. Alpha Company heads to another village.