The World Played Chess

William’s first journal entry describes his mother giving him a gold crucifix on a chain and telling him not to be a hero as he leaves for boot camp before deploying to Vietnam.

Vincent finds the journal he kept when he was a teenager while his house is being remodeled. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have an 18-year-old son named Beau and a daughter named Mary Beth, who is a freshman in high school. Vincent studies his own journal and William’s. He had wanted to be a writer when he was younger but ended up becoming a lawyer for the stability of the job. He tells Elizabeth about the journal and about William, whom he had met on a summer construction job in 1979. He doesn’t want to tell Elizabeth too much about William because their deep conversations that summer feel too personal. Elizabeth finds it weird that William didn’t include a return address on his package letting Vincent know where William ended up.

William attends boot camp in South Carolina. He could have gone into officer training, but he wants to get into and out of the war as soon as possible. En route to South Carolina, other young men just like him board the bus, looking tough even though they are all scared. When they arrive at boot camp, drill instructors yell at them, and they are given a number that will stand in for their name, a buzz-cut, and military clothes. The heat in South Carolina is unbearable for many of the young men, some of whom pass out. The first day of boot camp should have been William’s first day of college.

Vincent attends a party with his high school friends, where he gets drunk and jumps into his friend’s pool on a dare. Vincent is his high school’s valedictorian, but he doesn’t let that reputation get in the way of partying during his last summer before going away to college. He returns home at two in the morning and tries to sneak in silently. His mother wakes up, but by the time she gets downstairs, he’s in his bed, pretending to be asleep.

In March, William flies to Da Nang, Vietnam. He scores highly on his Marine Aptitude Test, so he’s able to choose his own job in the military. He selects the position of combat photographer. He has been hoping that the war would be over before he has to deploy to Vietnam. Anti-war protests in the United States are on the rise, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara has resigned. But the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong have launched the Tet Offensive, which means that the United States needs to send more troops to support South Vietnam. His first impressions of Vietnam are the overpowering heat and the rank smell of all the men.

The morning after the party, Vincent wakes up with a hangover. His many siblings are at work, but Vincent still needs a summer job. One of his sisters, Bethany, is watching TV with her boyfriend, Mike, who tells Vincent that he’s gotten a new job on a construction site through his buddy William Goodman and that there’s a need for one more worker. The job pays well, and Vincent needs all the money he can get for college. Though he was admitted into Stanford University, he and his family can’t afford it, and Vincent needs to save up for community college.

Vincent reports to the job site, where Todd, the boss, gives him a hard time and starts him off doing grunt work. William, by contrast, welcomes Vincent and advises him on how to deal with Todd. Both Todd and William served in Vietnam. Although Vincent has heard about the war, he doesn’t know much about it. Vincent stays late at the job site to finish his task because he wants to prove himself to Todd.

William is sent to a base where he reports to Captain Dennis Martinez and Corporal Victor Cruz. The squad William joins has suffered numerous casualties. Cruz takes William on a tour of the base and tells him the rules for the squad: no talking about home and no talking about how much time a soldier has left. Cruz nicknames William “Shutter” because he’s a photographer. That night, North Vietnam bombs the base.

Vincent goes to a drive-in movie with his friends, who get into a drunken brawl and then drive away before the cops can get them. Vincent loves recounting stories like this at school, but now he reminds himself that he no longer goes to high school.

The soldiers hear the news of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, which causes tension between Black and white soldiers at the base. William is put on guard duty with a soldier named Kenny.

Vincent returns to the construction site. Todd is sufficiently impressed with Vincent’s work and gives him bigger responsibilities. William tells him about the poisonous snakes in Vietnam and how some soldiers hoped to get bitten so they’d be taken to a hospital and given a break. He also tells him about being a war photographer and how few of his photographs were published because they were so disturbing. William doesn’t tell Vincent why he didn’t end up pursuing professional photography or journalism after the war. William no longer wears the crucifix necklace his mother had given him. Vincent senses that there are certain things about the war that William doesn’t want to talk about. Vincent is both entranced by William’s stories and exhausted by them.