The first chapter in the book is entitled “Why They Hate Us.” In this D'Souza explains what it is that other countries hate about western civilization. This is where he introduces three ideologies, the “Islamic school” of thought, the “Asian school,” and the “European school.”

The Islamic school of thought is that it is impossible to take anything good from American society, meaning it is impossible to accept the good parts of the society without having to accept some of the bad parts too. Their entire culture is religion based and their religion sets the laws in their society. This makes it impossible for them to accept only a part of western culture without going against their religion. Almost every part of their lives are different from that of westerners. The caste system has been engraved in their society for far too long for them to accept anything else, like a democracy, free trade, and social rights.

Sayyid Qutb was an Islamist who became a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization which is one of the oldest of radical Islam. He heavily opposed the spread of American influence and believed that the west had separated the realm of God from the realm of society, the west being a society of freedom while Islam a society based on virtue.

Instead of completely dismissing the western culture's view, the Asian school of thought is this, “America and the West have solved the economic problem but they have not solved the cultural problem” (16). They look to model their economy after the west, allowing citizens of some areas free commerce, while not allowing the western cultural influences in. They have strict laws against vandalism and even forbid chewing gum in public. The goal behind this is attempting to build the country up to have the same prosperity as the west without the heinous crimes, corruption, and vulgarity.

D'Souza, an immigrant himself, also discusses how America is one of the only countries in which an immigrant can become a full citizen in terms of legality and culture. If a person moved to India, France, or Africa, lived there for 30 years, and even became a legal citizen of the country, they would still not be considered Indian, French, or African. For the most part, people come to America, assimilate after time, and can be considered Americans. D'Souza believes being an American is not so much birth place and nationality, but accepting and withholding a set of ideas, the American Ideology. (34)

D'Souza discussed many domestic reasons for Anti-Americanism. It is common for Americans to abuse or take advantage of their freedom, using freedom of speech to insult or disrespect people around them, along with popular culture. People flaunt premarital sex, pornography, and drug culture just because they can and this especially angers others from different countries. The beauty about America though is that you can do whatever you want within the law, even if it is seen as inappropriate by others.

French Anti-Americanism is based on their cultural superiority combined with the fear that their culture is losing its uniqueness in the rest of the world. The French feel that no single country should enjoy global domination and that the spread of the English language is going to jeopardize the future of the French language and culture. The actions of Osama Bin Laden with his numerous terrorist attacks earned him followers who believed in Anti-Americanism, mostly from the Islamic world, and in the Islamic school of thought it is believed that the Islamic culture is being taken over by American Culture.

D'Souza sees the political right, conservatism, as being generally the more patriotic party. Many conservatives are unhappy with current American Society and its “cultural breakdown.” In recent years however, patriotism has diminished in conjunction with morality and popular culture. Pat Buchanan goes as far as to say that the country he grew up in has been replaced by “a cultural wasteland and a moral sewer that are not worth living in and not worth fighting for” (25).

On the political left, Anti-Americanism has been prevalent and fashionable since the Vietnam War. Some believe that we had it coming, referring to terrorist attacks. Jennie Traschen insults the country that has given her freedom and safety by calling the United States “a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and oppression” (26). Overall, as someone who can think for themselves, and who holds a unique point of view, being an immigrant, D'Souza tends to agree with the political right in thinking that they are correct.

The author believes that America should not be criticized and attacked for slavery. History proves that slavery has been a part of every great civilization, from Jewish people in Egypt to prisoners of war. The fact is that Americans did not sail to Africa and simply capture people to enslave them at home; they went to Africa and bought people from their own tribal leaders who were selling them at a great profit. America is never acknowledged for being the first country to actually abolish slavery either. “It is a little known fact that African chiefs, who profited from the slave trade, sent delegates to the west to protest the abolition of slavery” (55). At least part of the blame should be directed on the people who were willing to sell their own to make money.

Western colonization was also a beneficial thing according to D'Souza. Although not beneficial for the local people during the actual time of colonialism, years later the benefits became clear, as the influences of the mother country appeared in the form of free trade, better technology, and more opportunity. The same can be said for slavery. Although their ancestors had to endure much hardship and pain, in the long run, it could be argued that slavery was beneficial for some. The descendants of the slaves are now living in America, possessing freedoms, technologies, and opportunities they probably would not have gotten in Africa.

D'Souza's arguments against the belief that America is decadent are this. We are a self indulgent country and are in some kind of moral dwindling. Even though however, we are still the best country out there and still attempt to leave no one behind. Standards of living are so high that even poor people have cars, television's, and are fat. America has worked to a point where we can be these things.

The final chapter of the book is called “America the Beautiful” and it is all about what we are fighting for when defending America. Our freedoms and democracy are at the top of the list followed by our commerce and ideals. We live a way of live envied by many. Even people who hate us wish they could live like us. Not defending our way of life could realistically send us into a change of cultures where Muslim ideas could take hold and we could lose simple freedoms we take for granted everyday.

D'Souza believes there are many things that are great about America. He believes that Americans are special, the country has been blessed by God, the American system of government and living is unique, and that Americans are not like people anywhere else. He believes there is plenty to fight for.

Although closely related, as father and daughter, two of the main characters in Field Trip still interpret the setting very differently. Returning to the site where his close friend and fellow solider fell 20 years earlier, Tim, who is also the narrator, understands the field much better than his daughter, Kathleen. “I stood with my arms folded, feeling the grip of sentiment and time. Amazing, I thought. Twenty Years” (p.182). As Tim was remembering the past and honoring his old friend his daughter was sitting in the jeep with the interpreter, talking softly and quickly becoming friends. Neither of them seemed to grasp the significance of the place or the reason why they traveled on bumpy dirt roads for two hours in the blazing sun. They had not experienced what Tim had experienced. War changes someone and in this case makes relating to a ten-year-old girl very difficult.

This passage shows how Kathleen does not understand what is going through her father's head as he is looking out at the field. “I took out my camera, snapped a couple of pictures, then stood gazing out at the field. After a time Kathleen got out of the jeep and stood beside me. "You know what I think?" she said. "I think this place stinks. It smells like…God, I don"t even know what. It smells rotten” (p.182). This sounds pretty thoughtless at first, saying how this place smells as her dad is remembering fighting on the same grounds and watching his friends fall, but then you realize that she really just does not know any better. There is no way a ten-year-old girl can realize the intensity of battle and relate to how her father is feeling.

Something is revealed about the narrator's character when you learn that this trip was kind of a birthday gift to Kathleen. It makes the reader think that maybe Tim wanted to try to connect with his daughter better, or show her why he feels the way he does by bringing her to Vietnam. Does he realize that she cannot relate and does he realize that he may be expecting more out of her than he should be?

When she asked him why he had to go to this place during the war he answered, “I don't know, because I had to be” (p.183). She did not accept that answer, wanted to know why he had to come back, and kept asking why, only to get the same answer. Tim really could not find a reason. It was just something he knew he had to do. It felt right and he had business there, a final laying to rest. She could still not understand this.

He thought it was appropriate to bring his 10-year-old daughter to a battle scene to see where his best friend had died. This was probably because he was attempting to connect with her and help her understand why he felt the way he did. In an interview of O'Brien a few years after he published The Things They Carried he explains how he attempted to make non-veteran readers understand the feelings of veteran readers by asking certain questions, such as “How would you feel if this happened to you,” and “How would you feel if suddenly you were drafted”( Literary Events Featuring O'Brien). This is just his attempt at getting readers to think through to the other side and realize what some people went through. Asking questions like these was for the same reason he brought his daughter to Vietnam. Aside from his personal tasks he wanted to educate his daughter on something that was very important to him; something that he felt his daughter should understand just like his readers. “Indeed, much of O'Brien's fiction seems to be concerned with probing the limits of trauma and attempting to find ways of overcoming the division between those who experienced the war in Vietnam and those who did not” (Acts of cultural identification.) Many people believed getting un-traumatized readers, meaning ones who did not go to war, to share the same feelings as traumatized readers was impossible.

Christopher Mc-Donough writes in Incense and Ashes that Tim O'Brien's stories are of a postmodern theme, meaning he writes from experience and therefore people who have not experienced can never fully understand. This view opposes O'Brien's by saying that getting his daughter to fully understand the past is impossible because she did not experience the thing being taught.

By the end of Field Trip, it is apparent that his daughter still does not understand everything that her father went through. As much as he wants his daughter to understand how he feels, the theme of post modernism proves that that is not possible. She was not there therefore she can only experience what she has been told, which is not the full experience.