Coombia

Doly Piraquive
HS 202
Caputo's essay





After reading the book a rumor of war and learning more about the story

and personal experiences of Philip Caputo a 24 year old soldier that joined the

marines in 1960. By the time Caputo joinedthe marines he felt that he was in

part responsible for the well being of his country this was in part because of the

ideas of the Kennedy era but also because this young men was tired of living and

ordinary life. He was raised in a small town and soon became tired of this kind of

life,he was searching for something more exciting, maybe a bit of adventure. He

had dreams of being a hero someone important with an extraordinary story to tell.

That was the main reason Philip Caputo made the decision to join the Marines

he never thought about the consequences of being deployed to a war zone andthat is exactly what this book and Caputo's story is about. His experiences, his

adventures and ultimately the issues he had to face while he was in a war zone

in Vietnam and how his ideas about the war changed after this experiences.

The story of Philip Caputo began around 1965 inWestchester, Illinois

where Caputo lived a normal and quiet life. At the age of 24 he began to have a









desire of living his life in a very different way. “ That is what I wanted, to find in

a commonplace world achance to live heroically. Having known nothing but

security, comfort, and peace, I hungered for danger, challenges and violence”

Caputo mentioned in his book that he had no idea how to fulfill this desires he

had. It was just then when he saw a Marines recruiting team standing in front ofhis college, it was then when he saw a chance to escape from the normality of

his life to a much more exciting life. His of living an adventurous life was so big

that he never took the time to think about it before making a decision. Caputo

mentioned he had another reason to enlist “ I needed to prove something.. mycourage, my toughness, my manhood, call it whatever you like” it was that

desire and all the other reasons what made the decision very easy for Philip

Caputo and even tough his parents were not very pleased with his decision he

joined the Marines.

During thefirst months of training Philip Caputo endure hard training; he

learned the basics but not even that came to a low price as he mentioned in his

book, “ And we worked hard to prove that, submitted all sorts of indignities just

to demonstrate that we could take it” with that he said there were times whenthe training became so hard and intense but despite all these he did not give up

he wanted to prove everyone included himself that he was able to succeed no

matter what.

After the first part of the training Caputo was send to Quantico for advanced

courses to help him get...