How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"…Captain Stewart is the one eligible."
"Eligible for what?"
"For major," Sergeant Simpson said. "And his best chance of making it is while he over here. His tour is up the fifteenth day of March."
"That's his problem," Peewee said.
"If he don't pick up his body count soon," Sergeant Simpson started to get up, "It's going to be your problem." (4.136-140)
Captain Stewart's promotion depends, at least partially, on how many Vietcong soldiers his men kill. Morbid, huh? Basically, he'll get rewarded for putting his men into situations where they could do the most killing. Those situations aren't exactly the safest, that's for sure.
Quote #2
Later Monaco heard from Sergeant Simpson that Captain Stewart got us out of it.
"You can't get a body count on a pacification run," Monaco said. (9.75-76)
Stewart is after one thing: body count. That might mean more free time for the platoon in the short term, but not going on pacification missions also means they'll only see Vietnamese in one way: as the enemy.
Quote #3
That afternoon, orders came through for Brunner and Lobel to be promoted to sergeant, and everybody else in the squad to be moved up to corporal. I didn't even know that Lobel had been a corporal. The word was that everybody was getting short on people. (11.96)
Considering what they've been through, the soldiers probably deserve their promotions. But really, should that be the reason soldiers should have gotten promoted? Because there aren't enough of them? Not the best system. Also, being short on people means lots of deaths. Not exactly reassuring to all the new sergeants and corporals.