Setting
Fig 1. Mountains in Vietnam
The Quang Ngai and Quang Nam are neighboring provinces on the east coast in the center of Vietnam. The Quang Nam is where Chu Lai is located, which was a coastal United States base during the war. The Song Tra Bong is a river that runs through the Quang Ngai province. The land is heavily forested where the land hasn't been cleared for farming, which is approximately 20%. The terrain has a diverse topography and mountain ranges go up to the coast. Temperatures rise above the eighties in the summers and hardly ever drop below seventy degrees. The low temperature range is due to the close proximity to the ocean, but it varies more in the mountains. The tropical climate extends into the highlands and up to the highest point in the country, Phan Xi Pang.
Fig 2. A valley in southern Vietnam
As seen in the picture below, the mountains also extend to the coast in some places creating sheer cliffs. However at Chu Lai this is not the case, the beach slopes gently which made it the ideal US military base. It is located almost exactly between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the largest city in Vietnam and its capital, respectively. Among the diseases the men could have gotten are malaria, hepatitis A, typhoid, and gangrene. Due to the exposure to cadavers, rotting jungle vegetation, unclean water, and other factors these diseases were all too common. O'Brien did a very good job describing the environment, which is important because it makes the entire book more believeable. If he had described and tundra environtment the book would not nearly have had the same effect due to the obvious falseness.