Three weeks before his scheduled release from the Navy, Bill has a fight with a fellow soldier at the Yokosuka mess in which he takes down the man by stomping on his stomach with both feet. Bill wins the fight but is assigned to the brig as a prisoner for 10 days and then given a discharge without honor. Bill goes back home.

Bill’s been at May’s for a week when he receives a call from James. The talk turns to James’s experience in Vietnam, James boasting he has seen torn-up guys everywhere in his stint. Bill insistently asks James about his experiences with women, using derogatory, expletive-laden language. James claims he has so many women that they are falling out of trees. Bill shouts in approval, saying he himself does not know how to deal with white women anymore. The call winds up with Bill telling James that Stevie called for him, and James choosing to ignore what Bill said.

By the end of January, Bill finds work as a night-shift cleaner at a sand-and-gravel outfit in Tempe, outside Phoenix. The job is dull and back-breaking, and soon, Bill quits the work. Bill takes to heavy drinking, ultimately moving out of home and living off soup kitchens. He spends three weeks in jail for another assault. Eventually, he meets a Pima (an Indigenous American people) woman and marries her after a whirlwind courtship. The first two weeks of the marriage are idyllic, till the woman’s brother moves in with them. Bill bails on his new wife, stealing her money and cigarettes while she sleeps, and gets on a bus. He is sure that two weeks of marriage don’t count.

In Vietnam, James is on a patrol when the Tet Offensive (about which Trung had told Hao) begins in the early hours of January 31st, 1968. The gunfire takes James’s company by surprise, and James and the others duck as shells explode around them. Sergeant Harmon tells James and a new recruit called Nash to dig a shallow trench in a ravine and stay put till they receive an all-clear flare from him. Harmon heads toward the direction of the explosions to do a reconnaissance.

James and Nash dig in, artillery fire tearing through the burning huts around them. James is consumed by fear: For all his dreams of combat, the reality is terrifyingly different. Just then, a Black American soldier who has always insisted on being called “Black Man” slides into the trench and shoots his heavy machine gun in the direction of the enemy fire, giving James courage. Grateful for Black Man’s bravery, James vows never again to use racist expletives. (Later, he learns that the man’s real name is Charles Blackman).

After a while, the enemy firing stops. James and the others see a flare and begin walking uphill, as Harmon had instructed. On the way, James kills a man, though he is not sure if the man was VC. The soldiers get into the LZ, where a mood of euphoria settles on the soldiers at having escaped death. However, late at night, James is woken by another attack, with rocket launchers going off. Harmon appears on the scene, inspiring confidence in the soldiers. Just then, there is a sudden explosion, and Harmon is hit. James watches in disbelief as Harmon bawls like an infant and a doctor injects him with morphine. Filled with fury, James vows to destroy the enemy. Harmon is taken to the nearby hospital, too critical to be flown out to a bigger medical center.

Meanwhile, the colonel, Jimmy, Minh, and Skip chopper down to the LZ. It is said the colonel’s “Kootchy Kooties” and Lurps (LLRP, elite guerrilla task forces) have captured a live VC. James, Nash, and the others gather to see the colonel’s interrogation of the man. The VC has been hung up from a tree by his wrists. The colonel and Skip stand away discreetly as the Kooties torture the VC. One of the men uses the spoon of his Swiss Army knife to gouge out the man’s eyes. James cheers the Kootie. When the colonel shoots the prisoner in the head to put him out of his misery, James goes up to the colonel and says that the colonel gave the VC too easy an end.

A few days later, James goes to Saigon to visit Harmon at the Army Hospital. The Sarge is in bad shape, paralyzed from the waist down, and unable to speak. James learns from the nurses that Harmon was hit by a signal flare in the spine, which has caused widespread damage. After visiting Harmon, James goes to a bar where he runs into the colonel. He tells the colonel about the damage done to Harmon and requests that the colonel put him in the LRRPs so he can seek revenge. The colonel promises to help James.

Meanwhile, the colonel takes Skip, Minh, and Jimmy to the Purple Bar, where Jimmy calls the Kooty who tortured the VC “crazy.” The colonel reminds Jimmy that it is the army and the CIA who turned the man “crazy.” Minh is privately bewildered that the colonel allowed the torture to take place, but believes the colonel knows what he is doing. He reflects that the colonel often confides secrets in him, such as the fact that the colonel killed one of his own comrades in a Japanese POW ship to save his fellow prisoners from massacre, or the fact that he has a wife in the lower Mekong Delta.

Afterward, as Skip patrols the area of the attacks with the colonel by helicopter, all he can think about is the tortured man, a man whom his family must have loved. Skip is troubled by the fact that torture and death should trouble him, a spy. Skip and the colonel meet Hao at Saigon airport. The colonel tells Hao his intelligence proved right, because of which they were able to save some military installations and kill a couple of VCs before they could attack a traffic bridge.

Weeks later, Skip is back in his villa when he gets a visit from the colonel, Jimmy, and Hao. The colonel tells Skip that he is finally ready to explain Operation Tree of Smoke and Skip’s role in it. Skip is to assess and monitor a man crucial to their mission: A double agent they’re planning to send to the north. The agent will send intelligence to their group, rather than to the US Army or Intelligence, making their mission a “self-authorized” liaison with the enemy. Skip notices that he no longer feels excited about the long-awaited mission. The colonel tells Skip that the double agent, Trung, will soon be placed with him.

On Tet, Kathy is in Sa Ve, delivering a child born with severe congenital abnormalities. The baby dies shortly after birth. Such births have increased lately because of the widespread use of defoliants, wartime chemicals dropped in jungles to strip trees of leaves and branches. Suddenly, a series of blasts rocks the village. Soon, Kathy is called to a nearby village struck by bombs that have killed many villagers. A girl survives, but she is deeply charred. Kathy tells the villagers there is nothing she can do for the girl. The villagers keep vigil with the girl all night till she passes away from her injuries.

Next, Kathy goes to the Biomedical Center, which houses several monkeys. The center is badly hit. The couple who run the center, Dr. and Mrs. Bingham, tell Kathy that only seven monkeys out of 158 have survived. Kathy pretends to commiserate, but wants to scream inside that these are only monkeys. She asks the doctor for his stock of antibiotics, which can help the orphans at Bo Dai. Mrs. Bingham grows irate and behaves erratically, asking Kathy to get out and flipping her maid’s skirt to reveal that the girl is wearing no pants underneath. The doctor tells Kathy she can take the drugs.

Kathy travels to Saigon seeking aid, seeing signs of devastation everywhere she goes, till she simply walks through the streets without sleeping. Colin Rappaport finds her and asks Kathy to admit herself to a hospital. Kathy tells him she knows she is exhausted, but cannot feel it. Some days later, she hears of a Canadian living in a villa on the outskirts and decides to pay her countryman a visit. The Canadian turns out to be Skip. Skip is so thrilled to see Kathy, his hands shake with happiness, though he tries to hide his emotions. They catch up, with Kathy telling Skip she is now working with the World Children’s Service. Kathy gets Skip to admit what she has always suspected: that he is a spy.

Skip and Kathy make love, Skip not having been with a woman since Damulong. Skip is not very experienced, but he tries to make things as pleasant as possible for Kathy. Afterward, Skip tells Kathy that her arrival has made the war go away for him. Kathy spends the night with Skip and cycles away the next morning. Skip doesn’t know it yet, but he will never see Kathy again.