1. For French writer Louis Guilloux, being an interpreter was much more than just a wartime profession. What did serving as an interpreter mean to him, and how did he embrace this role both during the courts-martial and throughout his life?
2. At their core, both the James Hendricks case and the George Whittington case are about two "trigger-happy drunken soldiers" (132). The two men, however, experience wildly different fates. Do you think the American authorities acted with good intentions in both trials, of Hendricks and Whittington? Was there any bad faith involved, or is this a story of good intentions gone awry?
3. In an Army that was only 8.5% black, an astounding 79% of the enlisted men executed for capital crimes during World War II were black (7). What conditions in the Army -- and in the world -- at that time help us account for that appalling statistic? Do you think that those conditions influenced the behavior of James Hendricks on that disastrous night? Were you aware before reading The Interpreter
that the soldiers fighting in World War II were segregated by race? With all the attention given to the civil rights movement in the American South, why is so little known about segregation in the Armed Forces?
4. In the Army's handbook for interacting with civilians, U.S. soldiers were informed that French women were "naturally erotic" (21). Where did that kind of misinformation originate? What do you think the effect o