Assigned the duty of rounding up lost or wounded Americans, the German soldiers who capture Billy and Weary include two boys in their early teens, two tattered, old men, and a middle-aged corporal who has been wounded four times and is sick of war.
Billy's attention is drawn to the corporal's boots. Polished and pure looking, they remind Billy of the innocence and purity of Adam and Eve.
The two scouts who abandoned Billy and Weary have been discovered by other German soldiers and are shot. Their blood was the color of raspberry sherbet.
Time traveling once again, Billy finds himself in his Ilium optometry office in 1967. He has trouble treating his patients, and he worries about his mental condition in general.
Billy closes his eyes and briefly returns to 1944 Luxembourg. He is being photographed by a German war correspondent, who will use the snapshot as propaganda, showing how poorly equipped the American army is.
Billy comes unstuck in time and again trips ahead to 1967. On a hot August day, he is driving to a Lions Club luncheon in Ilium. The speaker at the luncheon, a Marine Corps major, implores the audience to keep supporting the war in Vietnam until a victory is won.
now he is again back in Luxembourg, and it is the winter wind that brings tears to his eyes. Billy and his fellow American prisoners are forcibly marched into Germany, a march that Billy unexpectedly finds exciting.
they reach a railroad yard with rows of waiting boxcars; sorted according to rank, they are crammed inside.
On Christmas Eve, the train gets underway at last and begins to creep eastward. That night, Billy comes unstuck in time and travels to the night when he is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians.
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