The narrator and Bon learn that, in some ways, their new country is as accepting of violence as their old country was. The major has helped Bon to acquire the gun that will be used to kill him, using the Chinese connections that the General regards as partial proof of the major’s disloyalty. In the Vietnamese community, which has become even more tightly-knit in the U.S., the major is now regarded as an outsider. Bon is happy to kill him because doing so causes him to feel more connected to the country that he’s left behind, and gives him a sense of purpose that he hasn’t felt since his family died.