The morning after Kiowa’s death, the platoon bathed in the mud of the excrement field in order to search and find Kiowa’s body. Cross fuels with guilt and blame for Kiowa’s death and begins to contemplate on a letter to Kiowa’s father for Kiowa’s death. He blames himself for making the wrong decision, finalizing that he should have evacuated his men from the field. He feels that his neglect caused Kiowa’s death.The men find Kiowa’s body constarined between layers of musk, Unable to move it. After ten minutes and more pulling, Kiowa’s body is released from the fecal. Harrowed and relieved, the men clean him up and call the chopper.
O’Brien discloses about the discrepancy between real truth and story truth. He uncovers that the man on the trail near My Khe was not killed by him, rather he made up the story. He explains he wants us readers to feel what he felt and because of that, sometimes story truth is truer than happening truth.
O’Brien says that a few months after finishing the story “In the Field,” he returns to the site of Kiowa’s death with his daughter Kathleen and an interpreter. He uncovers that
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When the platoon is in the west of Quang Ngai City, they received notice of possible danger, so they lived at night and dreamed during day. The tension and sleep schedule affects the men; Jensen takes vitamins, Cross takes NoDoz, and Kiley simply retreats into himself. For six days he’s zipped, but then he won’t shut up. He begins obsessively scratching himself and protest of the bugs. In an instance, Kiley almost loses self-control, and confines to Sanders that he doesn’t think he will make it out as a medic. He mentions the thought of gruesome death and says that he is traumatised by images of body parts. He imagines his own body dead and bugs consuming him. The next morning, he shoots himself in the toe to be transferred out of the mission for