Chapter 10: Wintergreen

Major Major is a depressed man who has never had any friends and becomes even more isolated when he is made squadron commander by Colonel Cathcart. He starts wearing a fake mustache and dark glasses to forge the name of Washington Irving on official documents. Yossarian confronts Major Major and demands to be grounded, but Major Major tells him he cannot help. Clevinger is presumed dead after his plane disappears in a cloud off the coast of Elba. The narrator talks about ex-PFC Wintergreen, who is always going AWOL in the US and is sent to Pianosa as punishment. Yossarian thinks about Mudd, a soldier who died before even reporting for duty at camp, and the dangerous mission of the Great Big Siege of Bologna, which Colonel Cathcart volunteered his men for. Dr. Stubbs asks what the point is of saving lives when everyone will die anyway, and Dunbar responds that the point is to live as long as possible and forget about death.