Are they really cleansed?

In the story "Church", Henry Dobbins and Kiowa discuss how they felt it was wrong to stay in the church, imposing on the monks' privacy. In a bigger sense, they felt it was wrong to be in Vietnam, fighting a war they didn't believe in. After the monks clean their guns, "Henry Dobbins made the washing motion with his hands. 'You're right,' he said. 'All you can do is be nice. Treat them decent, you know?" (117).

This washing motif was also replicated in the story "Speaking of Courage". It told of a man named Norman Bowker, who killed himself after the war when he failed to find his purpose. After he drives around his town in loops, he "walked down to the beach, and waded into the lake without undressing. The water felt warm against his skin. He put his head under. He opened his lips, very slightly, for the taste. then he stood up and folded his arms and watched the fireworks" (148).

A more literal version of this need to be cleansed was found in the story, "In the Field". It explains Kiowa's death, and how he drowned in a field of waste. The men went to look for him the next day so that they could salvage his body from the mud, and in turn salvage his spirit from the indelible guilt and violence that this war has caused. The men "were tired and miserable; all they wanted now was to get it finished. Kiowa was gone. He was under the mud and water, folded in with the war, and their only thought was to find him and dig him out and then move on to someplace dry and warm" (155).