Kien
The protagonist of the novel, which tells his story told in non-chronological flashbacks. A serious, diligent, and cool-headed man, Kien comes from a bourgeois family, though his mother leaves his father and his father becomes a tortured artist. Kien enlists to fight when he is seventeen and is excited about the opportunity, though he is sad to leave his cherished girlfriend, Phuong. War perverts and nearly destroys Kien, who marvels at all the terrible things he sees and does. He is a sorrowful man, and this characteristic is noted by those around him. His postwar life is marked by loss and disillusionment, as Phuong leaves him twice and he cannot escape from his memories of the war. Eventually, he begins a novel, which allows him to partially exorcise his demons and more fully engage in the prewar past, the only period of his life that is filled with joy and peace.
Tran Son
The truck driver for the MIA unit. He tells Kien that he is visited by the dead, who tell him things. He is very pessimistic and finds no solace in the war's end, nor in its purported goal of making life better.
Phuong
Kien's teenage love—a beautiful, spirited, passionate, dreamy soul who is attracted to the glamor of the war and seems destined for a painful and sorrowful life. She follows Kien into the first moments of war; after their train is bombed, she ends up being gang-raped by several men. Though we only see her through Kien's eyes, it is clear she is changed by this event and considers herself doomed. She and Kien do not connect for ten years while he fights; during that time, she engages in prostitution to survive. She and Kien try to make it work once he returns, but it is too difficult. Though Phuong loves him, she tells Kien they cannot be together. Her fate is unknown.
"Lofty" Thinh
One of Kien's men in his platoon. He is killed when the men ambush a group of commandos for murdering the three farmhouse girls, one of whom Lofty Thinh was sleeping with.
Can
A thin, rather annoying soldier who hoped for glory but deserts after finding that he cannot stomach being in the war. Kien is affected by him, as Can comes to him before he leaves to confess what he plans to do. Can never makes it home, and his corpse is discovered only a couple hours away from his departure point.
Kien's Father
An eccentric artist who was difficult to live with; thus, Kien's mother left him. He eventually withdrew from public life, focusing intensely on his surreal, tortured paintings. He was sorrowful and in ill health, and he died right before Kien went off to war.
Kien's Mother
Kien has few memories of his mother—mostly photographs. She was a loyal Party member and encouraged Kien to be one as well. She left Kien's father and married the poet. Kien did not see her after she left.
Kien's Stepfather
A prewar poet for whom Kien's mother left his father. He went into hiding during the days of Communist ascendancy due to an anti-intellectual climate. When Kien visited him, he found him dreamy, romantic, and inspiring, though someone rather foreign to himself. His stepfather died a few years later and Kien did not see him again.
Lan
The daughter of Mother Lanh, who was a maternal figure to the battalion while they trained in the area. Lan lives alone, burdened by the memories of her deceased mother, brothers, and infant son. She tells Kien he always has a place with her if he chooses to return to Doi Mo.
Hanh
A beautiful single girl who lived in Kien's building when he was a teenager. She found him handsome and asked him to help her dig an air-raid shelter in her room, but when he tried to kiss her, she put him off. She told him to return because she had something to tell him, but Kien never did, and she soon left without ever telling him her secret.
The Prostitute
A young, emaciated woman who works as a prostitute in Hanoi. Kien rescues her from an attacker and realizes she is the sister of one of his childhood friends, Vinh.
Tran Sinh
A former classmate of Kien and Phuong; he sustains a spinal injury during the war and rapidly deteriorates. Kien visits him and is overcome by the ruined man.
Phan
One of Kien's MIA scouts who obsesses over a dead ARVN soldier whom he'd promised to help but could not.
Quang
Kien's commander, who is brutally injured during the war and begs Kien to kill him; when Kien will not, he blows himself up with a grenade. His maniacal laughter haunts Kien.
Oanh
Kien's fellow soldier; he sympathetically allows a female enemy soldier to retreat, but she shoots him dead.
The Mute Girl
A young woman who lives in Kien's father's attic. She falls in love with Kien even though she knows he does not love her and only wants her to be a sounding board for the stories of his novel. They are intimate once and never see each other again after Kien leaves in the night. He leaves her the apartment and his manuscript.
"Clumsy" Vuong
A veteran once known for driving an armored car and being hardy and courageous; now, he has been reduced to drunkenness and despair.
Hien
A girl soldier whom Kien meets and has a brief flirtation with on the peace train.
Hoa
A young girl soldier from the North working as a trail guide in Cambodia. Kien ends up with her and a group of wounded men, and he is frustrated that she cannot find the way to Sa Thay. He softens toward her as they look for the right trail, but she is raped and killed not long after when she sacrifices herself to protect the wounded men from an American patrol.
The Narrator
Ninh writes a character into the novel at the very end who functions as the novel's fictional creator (some scholars speculate it is supposed to be Ninh himself); this narrator writes that he came across the manuscript the mute girl possessed, read through it, and copied it. He realized he knew Kien and believed they bore the same fate—the same sorrow of war.
