"You are talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive."
"Exactly," Clevinger snapped smugly. "And which do you think is more important?"
"To whom?" Yossarian shot back. "Open your eyes, Clevinger. It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead." (Heller 133-34)

A conversation such as this one presented in Joseph Heller's Catch-22 probably occurs more often in the battlefield than any other. The decision to go off to war, whether voluntary or not, is certainly a brave one, especially with the possibility of death so close, and with the chance of such anonymity. In a very literal sense, such a death is the ultimate exercise in patriotism. Countries around the world have erected monuments as a sort of apology to these soldiers who have given their lives to war but not their names. Undoubtedly, a large number of these soldiers accounts for countless victories for many a nation, but most of these deaths go unrecorded because most armies are not sufficiently organized to care for all their dead. The presence of the unknown soldier has been integral in nearly all war novels since Stephen Crane presented a dark side of war in The Red Badge of Courage. Heller follows many ill-fated unknown soldiers in Catch-22: a dead man in Yossarian's tent, an anonymous soldier in white, another soldier who sees everything twice, and another who touches him personally by dying in his arms. The recurrence of these images of "unknown soldiers" forms the foundation of one of Catch-22's most prominent themes: the loss of individuality to an uncaring bureaucracy. Heller's protagonist Yossarian often takes note of these soldiers and, in hopeless attempts to martyr his former comrades, fails to gain others' recognition and merely annoys his superiors.

Perhaps the most significant of the unknown soldiers in Catch-22 is one whose identity is never actually given, the Soldier in White. The soldier appears only briefly at the beginning of the novel in the field hospital, and again later as Yossarian recalls the incident and describes the soldier's situation in more detail. Representing the entirety of unknown soldiers who die painfully in hospitals, this soldier, "constructed entirely of gauze, plaster, and a thermometer" (177), exists seemingly only to have his feeding and secretion intravenous bottles interchanged. "Changing the jars was no trouble to anyone but the men who watched them changed every hour or so and were baffled by the procedure" (180). Yossarian observes that recycling of the fluid suggests that there may or may not be a man encased in that plaster shell. The fact that there is a question of whether there really is a man inside the Soldier in White adds to Heller's assertion that the identity of the soldiers is unimportant; this one's identity was lost along the lines of red tape between the battlefield and the hospital. Heller adds a particularly amusing irony concerning the soldier when Yossarian comes upon another soldier in a body cast later on; he mistakes the new soldier for the old: "He had lost a few inches and added some weight, but Yossarian remembered him instantly by the two stiff arms and the two stiff, thick, useless legs. . ." (376). By merging the identities of the soldiers, Yossarian unwittingly joins the same absurd bureaucracy he has been denouncing since his Avignon mission- he, like everyone else in the hospital, is incapable of distinguishing one soldier in white from another. In this irony, Heller states that perhaps all the soldiers in white are indeed the same in symbolic terms--all are voiceless victims of a cold bureaucracy.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the soldier in white is the way that others react to him. Yossarian and most of the patients and staff are disturbed by his existence but indifferent about his presence. Yossarian and Dunbar argue over the existence of an actual soldier within, and many of the hospital workers regard the absurd constant polishing of his intravenous tubes as a chore. The Texan takes a liking to him, enjoying his company as the only one in the hospital who will listen to him: "Deep down inside he's really a regular guy. He's just feeling a little shy and insecure now because he doesn't know anybody here and can't talk" (178). In examining the reactions toward a voiceless, faceless soldier, Heller symbolizes the variety of reactions of people in real life toward their unknown soldiers- as they do in Catch-22, most people ignore the unknown soldiers, but it is the few that notice them that are significant. The way the Soldier in White is treated at the hospital parallels the manner in which many of our veterans are treated at home. Both soldier in white and veteran are ignored to oblivion by an uncaring, nebulous bureaucracy, thus allowing Heller to make a statement about the values of his American society . . . perhaps not all the priorities are straight.

A semblance of bent priorities is also found in the next chapter, in which Heller examines how the bureaucracy contorts the truth to belittle identity. While faking a liver ailment, Yossarian rooms with Giuseppe, dubbed "the soldier who saw everything twice." Yossarian plays along with his ruse, and when he dies in the night, the attending doctor asks Yossarian to substitute for the Giuseppe for Giuseppe's family: "They've traveled all the way from New York to see a dying soldier, and you're the handiest one we've got . . . We're all in this business of delusion together. I'm always willing to lend a helping hand to a fellow conspirator along the road to survival if he's willing to do the same for me." (192). The doctor exhibits a surprising dose of insight- not only does he recognize that he contributes to the bureaucracy's conscious belittling of identity by substituting Yossarian for Giuseppe, he also realizes the family probably would not care or even notice that Yossarian is an impostor. Yossarian obliges, resulting in an amusing, absurd scene depicting Yossarian impersonating a delirious Giuseppe for his family. The doctor's insight is correct; the family just presumes that it has a delirious son as Yossarian argues over his own name:

"Ma, make him feel good," the brother urged. "Say something to cheer him up."
"Giuseppe."
"It's not Giuseppe, Ma. It's Yossarian."
"What difference does it make?" the mother answered in the same mourning tone, without looking up. "He's dying." (195)

The premise of mother's statement strangely echoes the doctor's: One dying soldier is as good as the next in the eyes of his family. Heller extends this premise symbolically- perhaps every dying soldier has lost an identity entirely and like the soldier in white, every one is the same victim of the uncaring bureaucracy.

Heller presents a similar situation of assigning confusion to the dead when he examines the supposed death of Doc Daneeka. The army officially considers him dead after being listed on the flight log of a crashed plane. Heller presents this as another situation of lost identity; regardless of whether he is actually dead, Daneeka cannot effectively interact with others. "Sergeant Towser's heart was heavy; now he had two dead men on his hands-Mudd, the dead man in Yossarian's tent who wasn't even there, and Doc Daneeka, the new dead man in the squadron, who most certainly was there and gave him every indication of proving a still thornier administration problem for him" (351). Heller uses Daneeka's dilemma to demonstrate the inefficiency of the Pianosa bureaucracy and to contrast the plights of unknown soldiers, namely that Daneeka has lost an identity but not a life, and Mudd a life but not an identity. In effect, Daneeka represents both the ideal and antithesis of the unknown soldier: he loses his identity yet still remains alive, both a result of an inflexible bureaucracy.

Eventually, Heller extends this irony further by allowing Daneeka to take advantage of Mudd's death by eating his rations and taking his pay. Captain Mudd, always referred to as "the dead man in Yossarian's tent", puts his bags in Yossarian's tent but is killed before he can unpack them. Though "Yossarian didn't like him, even though he had never seen him" (31), Yossarian quickly grows attached to Mudd. Yossarian constantly refers to Mudd (of course, only as "the dead man in my tent") to other officers to demonstrate how soldiers' deaths often go unnoticed. None of the characters make any effort to remove his belongings or to report him as officially dead. However, Mudd becomes the first and most prominent of Yossarian's martyrs: Yossarian makes an effort to keep Mudd's belongings after the Avignon mission as a sort of monument. Since he never appears alive in the novel, but apparently has a profound impact on Yossarian's actions, Heller creates Mudd as the ultimate unknown soldier:

Yossarian . . . knew exactly who Mudd was. Mudd was the unknown soldier who never had a chance, for that was the only thing anyone ever did know about all the unknown soldiers-they never really had a chance. They had to be dead. And this dead one was really unknown, even though his belongings still lay in a tumble in a cot in Yossarian's tent almost exactly as he had left them three months earlier the day he had arrived-all contaminated with death less than two hours later . . . the moldy odor of mortality hung wet in the air . . . (118)

By the time Yossarian's new roommates dispose of Mudd's belongings, Yossarian has made an emotional connection with the dead man's belongings; his monument is gone, and remnants of a formerly sane life with it. Heller represents a contrast between the light and dark sections of the novel by beginning this chapter: "There were no more beautiful days. There were no more easy missions" (356). The disposal of Yossarian's monuments to Mudd and to his lost roommate Orr marks a turning point-the last straw before Yossarian simply must leave.

The loss of identity of the soldiers is most prominent when put in perspective of the bureaucracy of the entire army. After Yossarian is wounded in the leg in the Parma mission, Nurse Cramer scolds him for switching beds:

"Are you crazy? . . . I suppose you just don't care if you kill yourself, do you?"
"It's my self," he reminded her.
"I suppose you just don't care if you lose your leg, do you?"
"It's my leg."
"It certainly is not your leg! . . . That leg belongs to the U.S. government. It's no different than a gear or bedpan. The Army has invested a lot of money to make you an airplane pilot, and you've no right to disobey doctor's orders." (301-02)

Since the men's body parts are no more than "gear or bedpan[s]," Heller makes the point that the men themselves must not be more than simple pieces of artillery, effectively disallowing the soldiers any identity. Nevertheless, most of the soldiers in Catch-22 exhibit some behaviors to remove the mask of anonymity: Milo Minderbinder runs his syndicate, Yossarian has strange antics, and Orr is obsessed with going to Sweden. Each fears the possibility of becoming another unknown soldier. Heller connects these unknown soldiers with not just the soldiers but with all his contemporaries (the simple conforming to the idealistic 1950's standards reverberates even today) leading to a loss of individuality by government endorsement of "ideal" social roles, especially in the nuclear family. Heller formulates a social commentary by including these soldiers--and their housewives, their children, and their desk jobs. Despite any amount of effort, this anonymity will exist in any bureaucracy--truly a Catch-22.