Disapointment

Since the beginning of the novel, I have waited and searched for reasons, even reasons so small, for why Cacciato went AWOL.   "In October, near the end of the month, Cacciato left the war.
 'He's gone away,' said Doc Peret. 'Split, departed.'" (p 2). All the squad knew was that he had left that morning and has his eyes set on Paris, which according to Google Maps (I know they did not have the internet at their disposal) is over 12,000km away and would take roughly 2,500 hours to walk or 1/4 of a year...  So, right from the get go we know this Cacciato character is not the sharpest tool in the shed.  rather, he is as dumb as a fence post and the rest of the novel backs it up.  But, why would a squadron abandon their duties in the war and chase this one guy who clearly didn't do much to benefit them?

Anyways, Cacciato is your typical meat head, similar to Lenny from Of Mice and Men or even Bubba for the movie Forrest Gump.  Though there aren't a lot of passages that include him connecting or talking with members of the squad prior to his absence, there are a couple points in time that Paul Berlin reflects upon his only memories of him.  Cacciato is very, very nice but is unaware of social cues like shut up or stop.  There is one particular scene that is fairly reminiscent of the scene in Forrest Gump where Forrest first meets Bubba.  Bubba tells Forrest everything about shrimpin' and how to prepare them.  When Paul Berlin first meets Cacciato during a hike into the mountains of Vietnam, it is very similar.  It is a quiet night and Cacciato is chewing gum very loud and Paul Berlin is giving him looks of disgust and Cacciato not being all there in the head doesn't pick up on that and continues chewing loudly.  Paul Berlin says something and eventually Cacciato offers him some gum.  Paul Berlin refuses to take his gum because that seems to be his thing and there is no way to get anymore out in the desert mountains of Vietnam.  But, Cacciato assures him that he has "zillions" and multiple flavors...  
"The boy smiled his big smile. 'You like that gum? I got other kinds
if you don't like it. I got--'
 'I like it.'
 'I got Black Jack here. You like Black Jack? Jeez, I love it! Juicy
Fruit's second, but Black Jack's first. I save it up for rainy days, so
to speak. Know what I mean? What you got there is Doublemint.'
 'I like it.'
 'Sure,' the round-faced soldier said, the child. 'Except for Black
Jack and Juicy Fruit, it's my favorite. You like Black Jack gum?'
 Paul Berlin said he'd never tried it. It scared him, the way the
boy kept talking, too loud. He sat up and looked behind him. Everything
was dark."                    (p 214)

After reading that passage, you really get the gist of how this guy is.  The next passage further emphasizes my point on this guy being foolish and just dumb.  No other way to say it.  There's a field that was bombed and it left several massive craters in it and one day it stormed up and poured so much it filled these craters.  Our very bright Cacciato decides he wants to go fishing wish some string, a paper clip, and some left over scrap food...in a large puddle. While the fisherman was away, the rest of the squad were scheming about killing there Lt. because he would make his men go in the tunnels and search them and the last time they did that, two men were killed and the rest were reluctant.  After an argument, the Lt. ended up being the one to go down in the tunnel and the rest debated on dropping a grenade down there and wanted it to be a unanimous decision meaning someone had to go talk to Cacciato.  Paul Berlin lost.

"Give it up."
 "I had some nibbles."
 "No."
 "Little nibbles, but the real thing. You can always tell."
 "Impossible."
 "Patience," Cacciato said. "That's what my dad told me. Have
patience, he says. You can't catch fish without patience."
 "You can't catch fish without fish. Did he tell you that?"
 "Patience."
 "It won't help. It won't change anything."                 (p238)

This sealed the deal for me on how dumb Cacciato is.  The entire story never approaches any reasoning behind Cacciato's absence and leads me to believe that he left because he isn't smart.  Originally, I thought he wanted to get away from the war because soldiers weren't too fond of the objective-less Vietnam War.  But that wasn't the case because he doesn't care or understand.  I could not find any reason why he would leave and these two passages just back up my theory of him leaving because he just woke up one day and wanted to go to Paris.