If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home

The narrative shifts to O'Brien's time in basic training at Fort Lewis, in Washington state. He saw himself as a man apart from the others there: "I did not like them, and there was no reason to like them" (33). He goes further: "I hated them all. Passionate, sad, desperate hate" (33).O’Brien goes through training as if he has no comrades: "I learned to march, but I learned alone" (33).

Against his expectations, O'Brien makes a friend, Erik, in basic training. They share a habit of asking ponderous questions about military duty and a love of books. In basic training, O'Brien and the other soldiers are made to follow arbitrary rules and customs. They run, sing songs, and wax floors. Arbitrary rules are brutally enforced. Erik and O'Brien swear to get revenge on their hated drill sergeant, Blyton. Blyton seizes on their friendship. He mocks them for being "college pansies" and "lezzies" (47).As punishment, he assigns them to night watch.

O'Brien and Erik enjoy their duty on night watch, at first:"No barracks quarrels, no noise. A sense of privacy and peace" (48). They come upon "a kid making an unauthorized phone call" (49). They stick him with the rest of their night watch, as punishment. They think they have gotten one over on Blyton, wriggling out of duty, but later, they “wondered if Blyton hadn't won a big victory that night," by getting them to enforce the army's rules (49).

Two months pass. In graduating from basic training, Erik and O'Brien go their separate ways. Erik has signed up for an extra year, in exchange for the possibility he would not be sent to the front lines in Vietnam. O'Brien "had gambled" on getting some kind of office job, far from the action (50). He loses his bet, and he is sent to infantry training. Erik goes to transportation school, and later will got a job far from active combat.

O'Brien next goes through advanced infantry training, or AIT, at Fort Lewis. AIT is different from basic training. At the end of basic training, some people become typists or mechanics. Everyone in AIT will soon be in combat. The drill sergeant hammers the point home, telling the soldiers to forget fantasies of an easy post in Germany: "You dudes are Nam-bound. Warsville, understand? Death City"(52).

In a public library, O'Brien researches ways to desert. He looks up information about fleeing to Canada, France, and Sweden. He prices bus and airplane tickets. He doesn't have quite enough money, but he plans to pick up a job and earn it in a few weeks, after deserting Fort Lewis. He asks his parents to mail him his passport.

O'Brien asks to see the battalion commander, but he is shunted into an appointment with the chaplain first. The first sergeant tells O'Brien the chaplain will "weed out the pussies from the men with real problems" (55). The chaplain is unsympathetic to O'Brien, telling him, "Goddamn it, you're a soldier now, and you'll sure as hell act like one!" (57). The battalion commander interprets O'Brien's moral concerns as a case of nerves, saying it’s natural to be fearful.

O'Brien leaves for Seattle one weekend, intending to put his escape plans into effect, but he doesn't follow through. Alone in a hotel room, he suffers from an upset stomach. He writes a long letter to his family, explaining why he is deserting, but in the end, he burns the letter and returns to base.