In Country

“She has never been this far away from home before. She is nearly eighteen years old and out to see the world.”

Sam has lived her whole life in Hopewell, Kentucky, and feels stifled by the smallness of the town and the narrowness of the people. Now she is on her way to Washington, DC to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and there is irony in the fact that her first time so far away is to visit something relating to death. It is only at the end of the book that it becomes clear this is a hopeful time of resolution for her.

“That is what the new feeling is like: you know something as well as you can and then you squeeze one layer deeper and something more is there.”

Sam has been seeking knowledge about her dead father and the Vietnam War, but she is frustrated by the lack of information she has found. This line refers to an experience depicted later in the book wherein Sam runs away to Cawood's Pond to recreate for herself what Vietnam might have been like. She feels that the experience changed her whole understanding of reality.

“Everything in America is going on here, on the road. Sam likes the feeling of strangeness. They are at a crossroads: the interstate with traffic headed east and west and the state road with north-south traffic. She's in limbo, right in the center of this enormous amount of energy.”

On the way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sam is not only at the crossroads of busy roads but also at the crossroads of her life. At this moment she does not know which way she will be going. Caught between childhood and adulthood in her personal journey, she takes this opportunity to pause and contemplate her place in The Changing Landscape of America.

“Years ago when Colonel Blake was killed, Sam was so shocked she went around stunned for days. She was only a child then, and his death on the program was more real to her than the death of her own father.”

Television, and particularly the television series M*A*S*H, plays an important role in the book as a primary means of mediating reality. Sam learns much of what she knows about people and events from watching television. This imitates how the reality of the Vietnam War only existed to some people at home in the US through television while emphasizing the disconnect between Sam and the idea of her father.

“I get bored easy, so when I get bored I just stick another needle in my ear.”

These words, spoken by Sam's friend Dawn, provide evidence of how young people view small towns like Hopewell. Stuck in dead-end jobs paying minimum wages, women such as Dawn have little hope for their futures beyond marriage and having children. This boredom leads to aimless attempts at stimulation and individuality.

“Sam had seen a bumper sticker in town: SPRAYED AND BETRAYED.”

The bumper sticker Sam cites is in response to Agent Orange. Veterans believed that they had been exposed to the chemicals of a potent herbicide while in Vietnam and that the chemicals caused serious side effects to them and their children. That the government denied any wrongdoing and refused to help the veterans suffering from the exposure felt like a betrayal to the men involved.

“The face in the picture ruled the room.”

Sam examines her father's photo and talks to him as if he can answer back and reveal his secrets. The photo's prominent position in the room, tucked into the mirror, reveals the importance Sam places on it and, by extension, the importance she places on learning more about her father in her search for identity.

“If there wasn't a war for fifty years and two whole generations didn't have to fight, do you mean there should have been a war for them? Is that why we have wars—so guys won't miss out?”

Sam challenges a statement by Lonnie's father that he feels like he missed out on something important since there was no war while he was growing up. Sam reveals her growing sense that war is something men like, despite the pain, suffering, and sorrow it causes during and after. Her disillusionment with the idea of nobility or necessity in war represents her developing maturity and growing sympathy for those left embittered by the war.

“The merchants were trying to save downtown from the attractions of the shopping center and the Paducah mall.”

The Flag Day sale in Hopewell demonstrates The Changing Landscape of American Life. Across the United States, central small-town business districts suffer from the expansion of big box and chain stores. Many long-time stores go out of business due to shopping malls being constructed on the periphery of towns where land is cheap.

“Out in the jungle, around the time when we came up on that dead place, there weren't any birds. Maybe for miles, there weren't any birds.”

Tom tells Sam about one of his experiences in Vietnam. This connects with the symbol of birds used throughout the novel, which generally represent hope or freedom. Tom remarking on how he never saw birds in Vietnam implies that he has no hope, unlike Emmett, who spends the story searching for the egret he saw during the war.

“Sam thought of all the documents on file there that were connected to her—her parents' wedding license, birth certificates, death certificates. She wished she had copies of all these official proofs that she was who she was.”

At the Courthouse with Tom, Sam reflects on the official records stored there. Her desire to have copies of the records reveals her childish longing for a higher authority to tell her who she is rather than having to go through the process of searching for her own identity. She remarks that this is not a rational thought, which suggests a mature ability to reflect on her desires.

“When you're in country, there's so little connection to the world, but those songs—that was as close as we came to real connection.”

One of the veterans tells Sam the importance of popular music while “in country,” the veteran's way of referring to Vietnam. He says that his favorite was “White Rabbit,” a song by the Jefferson Airplane with lyrics describing an LSD “trip.” This disconnect from reality mirrors Sam’s own method of viewing life through the depiction she sees in TV shows and songs.

“On TV, they make us all out to be psychos and killers. But most of us have adjusted just fine. I haven't had any problems. I've got a good job.”

One of the veterans refutes the stereotyped notion of the Vietnam War veteran. Mason likely included lines like these and references to other vets who reintegrated themselves successfully after the war on the advice of W.D. Earhart, a Vietnam veteran, scholar, and poet who served as a consultant on the novel. This also serves to deny a singular, universal experience for veterans, who each have their own unique experiences.

“There is no way you can ever understand. So just forget it. Unless you've been humping the boonies, you can't know.”

In perhaps the most famous quote from In Country, one of the veterans disabuses Sam of the notion that she will ever understand what the soldiers went through in Vietnam. In effect, “humping the boonies” became the defining “insider/outsider” dichotomy of the Vietnam War scholarship, giving privilege to those who had been “in country” themselves.

“‘That was about the time I thought everything started to change,’ Grandma said, ‘Hopewell used to be the best place to bring up kids, but now it's not.’”

Grandma here comments on The Changing Landscape of American Life. She identifies the immediate aftermath of the war as the moment when small towns like Hopewell began to change. This alludes to widespread anxiety about future generations, many of whom felt disillusioned with patriotism and suffered intergenerational trauma due to the war.

“Irene said she was studying psychology because human nature fascinated her.”

By having Irene make this claim, Mason uses irony. Irene does not understand Emmett, her own daughter, or even herself and her motivations for doing what she does. Her general dissatisfaction with the way her life turned out speaks to this. Like Sam, Irene is trying to come up with answers for her own behavior.

“She wondered why horror movies had to be remade—maybe because the world was getting scarier all the time.”

Sam previously enjoyed watching horror movies with Emmett. However, her growing interest and knowledge about the Vietnam War and the world at large as she becomes an adult causes her to become uncomfortable with the intensifying horror she finds in the media. While films and TV had been a safe place for her, she now finds them less comforting. This represents her move away from immaturely viewing life through the lens of fiction.

“It seemed appropriate that Hawkeye should crack up at the end of the series. That way, you knew everything didn’t turn out happily. It was too easy.”

The last episode of M*A*S*H closes with Hawkeye having a mental breakdown when he remembers that by encouraging a woman to quiet her baby, he has caused the woman to smother the child. Sam learns from the episode that nothing in life is assured, and that happy endings do not always happen. She is also growing in being able to distinguish what happens on television from real life.

“I was nineteen, not much older than you. Imagine yourself with this little baby. How would you handle it? But I can't live in the past. It was all such a stupid waste. There's nothing to remember.”

Irene tries to explain to Sam that she neither can nor wants to remember the past. It was a terrible time in her life, and all she wants now is a new life in the present and future. This mirrors the experience of many veterans and civilians, who feel that the memories of the Vietnam War are too painful to recall.

“He said he had worked with the gas gauge, but it was a subtle mechanism, harder to repair than something obvious, like a carburetor or a muffler.”

Tom here refers to fixing Sam's car. However, symbolically, he could be talking about veterans such as himself who have PTSD. The damage is deep and subtle, and although someone like Tom can appear to be fine, he can require emotional repair that is difficult to achieve.

“I work on staying together, one day at a time. There's no room for anything else. It takes all my energy.”

Emmett tries to explain to Sam why he is unable to work or form meaningful human relationships. His PTSD threatens to overwhelm him constantly. Sam's reminder, however, that he has demonstrated that he cares for other people suggests that despite the PTSD, Emmett may be on the road to recovery and healing.

“I came out here to save you, but maybe I can't. Maybe you have to find out for yourself.”

When Emmett finds Sam at Cawood's Pond, he wants to save Sam from the pain and guilt that he feels. He discovers, however, that coming of age is an often difficult and painful experience that only the person going through it can understand. To achieve maturity and independence, Sam needs to process her feelings on her own, even if he is there to emotionally nurture her.

“She touches her own name. How odd it feels, as though all the names in America have been used to decorate this wall.”

Sam’s feeling that all the names in America are on the wall suggests that she finally understands that the war touched everyone, not only the veterans who fought there. By touching the name of a soldier who shares his name with her, Sam symbolically makes herself a part of the Vietnam experience, and in doing so symbolically heals the generational and political divisions that ruptured the country.