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He had difficulty keeping his attention on the war. On occasion he would yell at his men to spread out the column, to keep their eyes open, but then he would slip away into daydreams, just pretending, walking barefoot along the Jersey shore, with Martha, carrying nothing.
Like most of the men in Tim’s platoon, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is young. Although he’s in a position of power, he’s only a few years older than the boys he’s leading. Just like them, he struggles with the emotional burden of fighting in Vietnam. As a coping mechanism, he fantasizes about a woman back home, falling into intense daydreams to separate himself from the horror of his reality. Martha becomes a hyper-fixation that keeps his mind off the menial daily labor of war as well as the gore, terror, and death.
He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war.
After Ted Lavender is shot in the head coming back from a bathroom break, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross realizes that his daydreaming is not acceptable. In removing himself mentally from his physical circumstances, he is becoming lax and irresponsible, allowing soldiers to behave in dangerous ways. Ted’s death snaps Jimmy back to reality, and he realizes that he needs to take his position – and his reality – more seriously. The lesson he learns comes at the price of Ted’s life, which is yet another burden Jimmy will carry throughout Vietnam and through his lifetime.
Maybe it was something in the posture of the soldier, or the way he seemed to be reaching for some invisible object beneath the surface, but for several moments Jimmy Cross stood very still, afraid to move, yet knowing he had to, and then he murmured to himself, ‘My fault,’ and he nodded and waded out across the field toward the boy.
Yet again, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is forced to reach a place of emotional maturity far beyond his years and accept responsibility for Kiowa’s death. As the Lieutenant, he carries a particularly heavy load. While his men have the burden of the fear of death, Jimmy carries the same load, plus the burden of responsibility. Any mistake he makes – such as the decision to camp in the mud field despite logic saying otherwise – is one that could lead to the loss of human life. When he sees Tim O’Brien searching aimlessly in the water for Kiowa’s body, he realizes that Kiowa’s death and the emotional trauma that Tim will hold forever is the result of his poor decision. In a moving moment of reflection, he accepts that terrible responsibility and sets it aside so that he can continue to be a functioning leader for his men.
