Although Perry feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude to be leaving Vietnam with his life, and although he’s already trying to let his memories of that time fade, he knows he will carry the dead with him for the rest of his life. His relationships with other soldiers, both those who lived and those who died, puts a human face on the war, even when military command so often treated its soldiers as nameless, faceless, unimportant and replaceable pieces of equipment. In this moment, prayer allows Perry to bridge between the living and the dead, drawing all those whose lives touched his into one group, united in their shared experience of the war. As he goes home and tries to figure out who he is now, they will stay with him, and those that died will live on, in a way, through his memory.