Outside Reading Post 2

Chapter four focuses on John Chatterton and his life. When John was growing up he was always searching for something to define himself. So he goes around looking for jobs that he feels he can keep working at and they will challenge him. He wants to do things that other people don't do, or can't do. His brother Jack had been successful, and their father wanted John to go work for Jack. On the phone John argued with his father that, that was his fathers plan, not his. At his high school he noticed the Vietnam protesters and then it hit him, the military! He didn't want to be in the Navy because he would be given special provisions because of his grandfather. He then realized that to be a medic would be perfect, John stated, "No matter how ugly things got, as a medic he could help people instead of killing people" (Kurson, 73). John had finally found his calling.

When John lands in Vietnam there is no warm welcome, nobody to shake his hand, just war hardened soldiers. John could tell that immediately the men took dislike to him. John showed this when he thought, "You don't know [crap], You won't be around long. If we need help, you probably won't deliver" (77). Not exactly what you would call a warm welcome. There was nobody there to really show him the ropes, he was there for less than a day when he was all of a sudden assigned to a platoon. While everybody was running around doing things, he stood there not knowing where he should be. Eventually another medic nicknamed Mouse took him under his arm. Mouse told him his philosophy about how to do this job and what it meant to him, John understood Mouse and related to him because he too thought that the medic's job was like none other. John proves himself to everybody when he constantly risks his life in the direct line of fire to save other soldiers. John is given the nickname Doc, and he was starting to learn what life was about. After a couple weeks, he learns that Mouse had been shot repeatedly by an enemy sniper, who had mistaken him for a higher ranked soldier because all he carried was a pistol on his waist.

When John returns after his 12-month tour he is silent. He goes home and his mother wants to know how he is. John breaks down, he just cries and cries and tells her about all of the things he saw and all the people he saw die. After awhile John needs another job but cannot find out that suited him as the military had. John goes from job to job but comes up empty handed. His G.I. benefits bill expired in a year so it was now or never for school. He refuses to become a computer programmer sitting under florescent lights for the rest of his life. He finally discovers his life's calling, commercial diving. His wife wants him to do what will make him happy, so that gave John the green light. John did jobs all over the place in cold zero visibility waters. He hears stories of Bill Nagle and signs up on ever diving trip the seeker was going on. John had been struggling his whole life to find what would challenge him yet bring him somewhere where nobody else had gone. Just as other people such as Richard in Black Boy had struggled to find what they could do with their life. John is able to do what he enjoys with people who understand him. John is surely to become one of the most remembered divers of all time.