Richard Galli

Reading Group Guide

• Did Of Rice and Men change the way you thought about the Vietnam war? About Vietnam veterans?

• In what ways were the characters you met in Of Rice and Men different from the characters in traditional war novels or motion pictures?

• In what ways were the issues of sex and male-female relations treated differently in Of Rice and Men than they are usually treated in war novels or motion pictures?

• Before you read the book, were you aware of the Army's "Civil Affairs" mission?

• Is it good or bad that the wartime mission of the Army might include hog breeding?

• If Paul Gianelli dies building one of those concrete medical clinics, is his sacrifice worth it?

• Is the Civil Affairs mission in this book similar to the mission in Iraq? How have things changed, if at all?

• What was the plot of the book? Was there actually a plot? What was the "plot" of the standard soldier's tour in Vietnam? Is it any different now in the Middle East?

• Given the carnage inflicted by both sides during the war, is the author's treatment too lighthearted or disrespectful?

• At the beginning of the book, we see (through Guy Lopaca's memory) a young American dying in the D-Day invasion: "that young man had given everything he had, just to be there on the beach with other young men who needed to be there with him." As Guy returned from the hospital ship to his unit in Hue City, feeling miserable and guilty, he is described as someone "who would never know the sanctifying thrill of combat." In his Afterword, the author says "we gave in to the terrible force of duty, which we owed to others because they felt the same obligation to us." And the Bloat boys, he says: "had been fabulous suckers for two hundred years." What is the force that attracts men to wartime service?

• Does the book ever give you a rationale for the way people are often drawn to warfare, and often celebrate the combatants on both sides?

• Is there a difference between how war is viewed by men and by women? Is this book likely to appeal to women readers? If so why?

• Does it make any difference whether some of the incidents in the book are "real" (based-on-fact), rather than imagined? Did the miracle rice seed for which Guy and his friends risked their lives actually end up planted in the rice fields of North Vietnam? Did real American soldiers dance with real fish in real parking lots? E-mail the author for the answer, if not knowing keeps you awake at night.

• Is Mary Crocker the stereotypical whore-with-a-heart-of-gold? If not, who is she?

• Conflicted young men like Guy Lopaca opposed their war, got drafted, joined GIs For Peace, volunteered to serve in Vietnam, and packed a gun. Citizen-soldiers remained openly hostile to the war while proudly serving in it. Is that happening now? Are conditions now the same? If not, why not?

• There is a brief mention of some South Korean soldiers who were our allies in the war. Were you aware that thousands of Australian, New Zealand, Korean, and Canadian troops fought in Vietnam? Do you think the war had the same divisive effect on their societies that the war had in America?

• In his Afterword, the author says he chopped out of the book harsh material that represented the darkest tides of his lingering pessimism. Should he have kept that material in?

• The author has said that he wanted the book to achieve the impossible: to make people smile when they heard the word "Vietnam." Did he succeed? If you smile, should you feel guilty?

• What is a remf?

• If your son or daughter ever has to go to war, would you wish for your child a safe posting in a non-combat unit; or would you want your child to have the chance to earn a combat grunt's muddy boots?

• If not your child, then whose?