40 pages • 1 hour read
Tobias WolffPharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 7-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “The Lesson”
The Tet Offensive begins in the early hours of the morning on January 31, 1968. The guerillas had been in Mỹ Tho for weeks without anyone knowing and quickly took over the town. Wolff and Benet hurry over to the Major’s headquarters, but the Vietnamese troops push them away, telling them to come back later when they are less busy. So, the two spend the morning cleaning their weapons and learning about the Offensive from the radio reports.
In the afternoon, the troops notice a single-engine spotter plane trying to get their attention. The plane has found a large group of Viet Cong sneaking up on their perimeter; the pilot continues circling while telling the troops where to fire. They cannot see who they are killing, but the guerillas eventually take cover. Once things look clear, the pilot leaves; however, Wolff and the others, with plenty of ammunition but few men, fire their weapons at their invisible enemies into the night.
The troops turn their attention to Mỹ Tho, laying waste to it, firing wherever the few remaining holdouts told them to fire. After a couple of days, air support arrives and continues the bombardment. By the time they are finished with it, Mỹ Tho is devastated and littered with corpses.
Once everything has subsided, Wolff allows himself to feel shame and grief, wondering if the Viet Cong also feel shame for feeding their own “children and families and towns” into their quest for “their perfect future” (139). He realizes, though, that even if the Offensive failed as a whole, they still achieved their purpose by demonstrating that the American troops cared little for Vietnamese life if their own were in danger.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “Old China”
When Wolff travels to Saigon on supply missions, he frequently spends time with Pete Landon, a Foreign Service officer he met in language school. Landon is a highly educated, highly accomplished officer who took a liking to Wolff and his “impersonation of a cocky young warrior” (141).
Landon lives in a “handsome old villa” with several young service officers (141), and friends always seem to be in and out of the villa. While visiting, the young men drink and listen to music; this is followed by a formal, high-class dinner filled with intense, intellectual conversation. The evening ends with a night on the town. Once the others have gone to bed, Landon and Wolff stay up talking. Wolff enjoys Pete’s company and always feels he had his best interests at heart, the way an older brother might.
Shortly after Tet, Landon arrives with a man named Shaw. While Wolff grills them some steaks, Landon remarks that Wolff is living in the “veritable lap of luxury,” which he does not make “sound like a compliment” (145). Once Benet and Shaw go to bed, Landon and Wolff stay up and talk some more, and Landon once again comments on Wolff’s decent setup, remarking that he did not live like Wolff does while he was “in the bush” in Saigon. Landon suggests that Wolff should be out “doing some damage” so he will have something “to look back on” when it is all over (147); Wolff, however, tells him that he just wants to get home.
The next day, Landon changes his plans and decides to see Ong Loan, an old informant west of the camp. Although he has no reason to go, Wolff decides to join him, to Benet’s stern disapproval.
Once there, Ong Loan and Landon talk pleasantries and Chinese porcelain, which they both appreciate. As usual, Landon holds the onlookers’ admiration and is assured in it, but Wolff recognizes that this demonstration of his own mastery is for the benefit of Wolff and Shaw. Shaw eventually grows impatient and forces them to leave. Ong Loan gives Landon an expensive gift, a bowl, that Landon tells Wolff to guard with his life, and they depart during a heavy rain.
On the way back, Landon tells Wolff that he has spoken to General Reed to get Wolff transferred up north, where the fighting is. When they return, Wolff tries to fight it, but Landon insists it is a done deal. However, Wolff says his tour will finish in two months, which finally forces Landon to acknowledge that it is not worth it.
Landon forgets his gift and messages Wolff to have it sent to him immediately. Wolff writes that, cognizant of its enormous expense, he smashed the bowl to get back at Pete. But later, he writes that he did not, in fact, smash the bowl because he would never “take something precious” from someone, such as their pride, “even for his own good” (157).
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “I Right a Wrong”
Sergeant Benet finishes his tour one month before Wolff’s is set to end. The two travel to Saigon the day before Benet’s flight; before dropping him off at out-processing, they stop in a bar for one last beer. Wolff realizes only once they are there that it is a “cracker joint,” and Benet uncomfortably sinks into his chair. They finish their beers and head to out-processing, where Benet is chastised for being late.
It is too late to return to Mỹ Tho, so Wolff drinks away the afternoon at a rooftop bar. Thoroughly drunk, he decides to go back to the bar and make up for the inhabitants’ cold treatment of Benet. However, it takes him some time to get back, as he continually stops at other bars along the way. He tries to pick a fight at the bar, but the patron just laughs him off. After nearly falling off his stool, Wolff walks back outside.
While outside, two customers step out, arguing with one another. Wolff loudly sings “We Shall Overcome,” and when the pair asks if he has a problem, he tells them he is “a Negro” (165). The men try to ignore him, but when Wolff continues to provoke them, one finally punches him, and they beat him up for a bit before sending him on his way.
As Wolff walks away, he realizes that his pipe was broken in the fighting, and returns to retrieve it. At first the men think he is back for more fighting, but then they help him find his pipe.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Souvenir”
As Wolff’s tour nears its end, Captain Kale, another artillery officer, is sent as a temporary replacement. Kale believes Wolff babied the Vietnamese and thus failed in his duties. Kale speaks endlessly about his plans to toughen the Vietnamese up to make up for Wolff’s shortcomings, even through Wolff’s continued silence on the matter.
Despite Kale’s assurances, he insults Major Chau early on, and it becomes known among the Vietnamese that they do not have to listen to Kale. One day, after being ran around, Kale asks Wolff to help him get a sling from Lieutenant Nam, who keeps telling Kale to get it from a different sergeant (who does not have them). Wolff assents, suggesting he should put in for a translator; Kale dismisses this, as he does not need “a Cong spy taking down every word” (173). Wolff, meanwhile, has no trouble getting the sling from Nam.
When Wolff returns, Kale is trying to attach a howitzer to a truck with an uncooperative driver. Wolff tells the driver to stop and let him take over; this incenses Kale, who tells Wolff that he will drive instead. They hitch the howitzer and head over to the courtyard where it is to be picked up.
At the courtyard, Wolff tries to tell Kale that there is not enough room for the helicopter to pick up the howitzer. He tries to get Kale to push the pickup back 20 minutes, but Kale will not hear of it. As the helicopter lowers, the rotors create a dust storm, blowing everything in the area around in “a chaos of winds,” tearing the thatch-roof houses apart (177). Kale misses the hook repeatedly, clearly blinded by the dust, before finally hooking the howitzer to the helicopter.
As the villagers clean up the debris following the helicopter’s departure, Kale attempts to return a photograph he finds on the ground. However, none of the villagers will speak to him or even look at the photograph.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary: “The Rough Humor of Soldiers”
On Wolff’s last night in Mỹ Tho, the battalion officers give him a farewell party at Major Chau’s house. His wife is not present, but a young woman, Miss Be, is introduced as his niece; she serves the men and flirts with Captain Kale. Unusually, after serving, Be joins the officers for dinner and continues to make eyes at Kale, telling Chau that she finds him to be very handsome.
Although Kale intended to remain faithful to his wife while in Vietnam, he succumbs and dances with Be. Chau eventually ushers them into a separate room while the rest of the officers continue with dinner. The battalion officers toast Wolff while stuffing themselves with food, which Wolff knows is part of the prank—he cannot eat while he is being toasted. Eventually, they allow him to eat.
While eating, they hear a yell and a roar from the other room, followed quickly by Kale stomping out to them, his face smeared with lipstick and anger. The battalion officers begin laughing hysterically. Kale asks Wolff if he knew that Be “was a guy,” and tells him that he would kill Wolff if he found out he knew (187). He storms out.
Wolff joins them in the joke but slowly realizes that they have begun laughing at him any time he eats. It dawns on him that he is eating Canh Cho. Nevertheless, he decides the only way to do his dog justice is to polish off his plate.
Part 2, Chapters 7-11 Analysis
Being a memoir about war, it could be said that the book as a whole is about survival, but there is a sharp difference between the earlier chapters and the later chapters in how this is treated. Wolff describes his position in the Delta in earlier chapters as a relatively comfortable, and lucky, one. The Delta is quiet and peaceful compared to the North; there are skirmishes with guerillas and snipers, and Wolff has some close calls, but for the most part, he and Benet manage to get by without much trouble.
This changes with the Tet Offensive, and this is a sharp break in the memoir as well as in Wolff. This is partially due to the danger of Tet as a massive offensive in which American troops suffered heavy casualties; Wolff and Benet spent much of the first day of Tet impotent, unable to call for support. However, Wolff gets lucky, and again he escapes relatively unscathed. In larger parts, this break is an epiphanic one. First, Wolff observes how quickly Mỹ Tho was taken by guerillas who had been in the town, among Wolff and the others, for weeks already, completely unknown to them. Second, though, after they take back Mỹ Tho, Wolff can no longer pretend he is on the side of the angels. The military responds to Tet by leveling Mỹ Tho to root out the Viet Cong; as Wolff notes, this means anyone who is not an Army soldier is an enemy. Wolff, therefore, discovers how quickly he can turn everyone into an adversary.
“Old China” continues revealing Wolff to himself. Pete Landon is an interesting character, both in the way Wolff describes him and in his juxtaposition with Wolff. Initially, Wolff sees in Landon someone to aspire to—a charismatic, intellectual man of fine taste. This opinion sours, but the reason for this is somewhat more complicated than Wolff suggests. It is true that Wolff determines Landon is putting on a performance, a performance that, consciously or not, Landon uses as a display of power to demonstrate how capable he is compared to anyone else. It is also true that it irks Wolff that Landon tries to get him transferred to the North against his wishes. However, in doing so, Pete forces Wolff to confront himself in a way similar to Tet. Until that point, Wolff was able to tell himself that he had been lucky, through no fault of his own. Once he is given the opportunity to go to where the fighting is, he is forced to admit, to himself and to Landon, that he has no interest in it. Further, he is forced to confront his relationship with Landon, which is not that of friendship. Landon deftly displays the power that people of his station have over men like Wolff, reminding the latter that though they may enjoy each other’s company, they will never be equals. In other words, the issue is not quite that Landon tries to get him transferred but that Landon attacks Wolff’s dignity, something Wolff vows he would never do.
This lens is useful for examining the following chapter, “I Right a Wrong.” Wolff’s actions may seem erratic and self-serving, but readers must look at them in conjunction with—and in reaction to—his experiences in the preceding two chapters. Throughout the book, Wolff wants to believe he is a good person; however, Chapters 7 and 8 force him to interrogate and reconsider his own relationships. As a result, he latches onto the one pseudo-friendship he forms in his time in Vietnam. Naturally, he screws this up as well. Benet continues to keep him at arm’s length, regarding Wolff as his superior, and for their farewell drink, Wolff takes him to a bar where black people are not welcome, something Wolff is unable to recognize because of his own privilege. The moment he leaves Benet is complicated—he is put into a position where he has the opportunity to stand up for Benet but must refrain from doing so in Benet’s best interest, suggesting a further impotence despite his rank. Finally, he attempts to make amends—not that Benet would know or benefit from those amends—in a ludicrous and selfish way. Stumbling into racist bars in Saigon looking to pick fights is a microcosm of Wolff’s larger experience: he desires to do good, but his execution leaves much to be desired.
The final two chapters represent a kind of peace while juxtaposing Wolff against another ludicrous character, Captain Kale. “Souvenir” demonstrates two differing approaches to integrating oneself into Mỹ Tho society as an outsider; although Wolff largely fumbles his way through his time there, his inadequacies are alleviated through Kale’s far worse approach. Wolff notes earlier in the book that he wants to be an American living among the Vietnamese, and at the time, this is juxtaposed against the Americans who attempt to fully integrate themselves into Vietnamese culture and society. However, Kale offers another version: that of the American who wants the Vietnamese to acclimate to him. Kale represents the worst, most imperialist instincts of the war effort; as a result, Wolff has no qualms letting him flounder. This is at best hypocritical, though; by letting Kale flounder with the howitzer, it is not Wolff who pays but the Vietnamese villagers—an internal contradiction that haunts Wolff later. Likewise, this is seen at Wolff’s farewell dinner, which is filled with the titular “rough humor of soldiers”—but, where Kale is livid, Wolff goes along with it, recognizing his status as both a fellow soldier and a perpetual outsider.
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