Life During Wartime

Joseph Heller describes the men in the army hospital as dishonorable and deceitful to show how not all soldiers are brave and courageous. Heller provides these characters with human characteristic traits that the reader has seen within themselves or others. Most of them pretend to be sick in order to avoid the duty that awaits them. He manages to get across the idea that the men are somehow innocent and decent by providing a mundane conversation among Yossarian and the chaplain that the reader is listening in on. Between the two, both share a mutual friend-- there's a basis to their conversation (Yossarian doesn't like that because he doesn't want the conversation to lead on). This makes sense because it shows how disinterested a person can be in a conversation with someone they don't want to talk to.