What was the Point?

Throughout each of the readings, I was struck most by the absence of a clear objective. It seemed, especially from the first Patterson reading, that soldiers felt that their only objective was just to kill as many "VC" as possible. It seemed that there was no ground to gain or objective to complete: just death. I thought that the lack of camaraderie contributed to the heartlessness and heightened brutality of this war. The fact that people were just shipped in as replacements, without proper training, highlighted the disorganization of the army. I was unsure whether the disorganization was due to just pure inattention- which didn't seem to be the case especially during the later years of the war- or something else. I still don't know what, though.