As I get deeper into Cryptonomicon, Bobby Shaftoe seems to remind me a lot of Hal Incandenza. Beyond his moments with Glory (which he promptly sets out to forget), Bobby has an automated robotic and detached quality about him. Beginning with the lizard incident, he feels unable to communicate with others except in his military protocol which Stephenson essentially boils down to a sterile enabler for the less pleasant side of soldiery i.e. killing other people. As we see on page 203 Bobby misses the "good old days, back on Guadalcanal" where he was "a free agent" able to accomplish his orders by all means necessary, but now he just takes exact orders with absolutely no freedom.