Lee Strunk steals Dave Jensen’s jackknife, and they get into a fistfight over it. Jensen eventually overpowers Strunk and hits him hard in the face until Strunk’s nose breaks. Three men have to pull them apart, and Strunk has to be airlifted for medical help. When he returns, Jensen is paranoid that Strunk will shoot him, so he breaks his own nose with his gun to make them even.
Slidkalniņš: 2
MAN vs SELF
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is broken up after Ted Lavender is shot. He feels that if he hadn’t been spending so much time thinking about his love back home, Martha, that he might have been able to prevent Lavender’s death. That night, he crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha’s letters and pictures.
Slidkalniņš: 3
MAN vs SOCIETY
After returning home, Norman Bowker finds it difficult to readjust to living normally again. He struggles to find meaning in his life after it had been turned upside-down in Vietnam. He can’t hold a job for more than 10 weeks, he drops out of junior college, and plays basketball all day. Bowker can’t find a way to fit back into his old life, and no one seems to understand or know how to help him, even his parents.