Too Heavy to Carry On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the

bottom of his foxhole and burned Marthas lettersHe realized it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid. Lavender was dead. You couldnt burn the blame (543). In Tim OBriens The Thing They Carried, the story depicts a group of American soldiers deep in combat in Vietnam. He describes the things they carried, a combination of items necessary for survival, and individual items needed for their sanity. Although Jimmy Cross burning of Marthas items is symbolic of his choice to accept reality instead of mentally distancing himself from the war, the narrators description of Ted Lavender and Martha convey that the necessity of these forms of escape are not deficiencies the soldiers should fix, but a commentary on the cruelty of war itself. This theme of escapism is consistent throughout the story. After the narrator claims that The things they carried were largely determined by necessity(532), the reader gets a description of items that is interspersed with materials not necessary for combat. Among the items described are pictures, a diary, a bible, and psychoactive drugs. These items helped them forget about and leave combat, a desire so intense that actual routes of escape are discussed. They imagined the muzzle against flesh. They imagined the quick, sweet pain, then the evacuation to Japan, then a hospital with warm beds and cute geisha nurses (542). Jimmy Cross blames himself for the death of Ted Lavender, and resolves to burns the pictures and letters from Martha that he treasures so much. This is because thinking about Martha is his way of momentarily lifting the weight of the war off of his shoulders, and thinking about what could have developed between him and Martha. Although Jimmy claims that Martha

has no interest in him, plentiful evidence in the story would argue otherwise. Although he is sure that she has boyfriends and does not love him, Jimmy also describes her as lonely and a virgin. Martha is an English major, and the reader assumes that she is not trying to deceive Jimmy with the wording of her letters. It was this separate-but-together quality, she wrote, that had inspired her to pick up the pebble and to carry it in her breast pocket for several days, where it seemed weightless, and then to send it through the mail, by air, as a token of her truest feeling for him(535). Martha was Jimmy Cross form of escape, a tool he decides to abandon by symbolically burning her pictures, and distancing his military life from her civilian life. He does this because he believes it will better protect the lives of his men. He was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence. It wouldnt help Lavender, he knew that, but from this point on he would comport himself as a good soldier (543). Although Jimmy Cross believes that his reminiscing about Martha was an important factor in Ted Lavenders death, the reader is given descriptions that paint the killing as purely systematic and unpreventable. All of the soldiers were waiting to see if Lee Strunk would return alive from a dangerous tunnel. While the others rejoiced in Lee Strunks arrival, Ted Lavender is shot in the head while returning to the group from urinating by sniper fire, a quick act that no one could have prevented. This opinion of the death is furthered by descriptions from other soldiers. He tried not to think about Ted Lavender, but then he was thinking how fast it was, no drama, down and dead, and how it was hard to feel anything but surprise(540). Ted Lavenders personal characteristics also prove to portray the death as inevitable. The typical load was 25 rounds. But Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot he went down under an exceptional burden, more than twenty pounds of ammunition, plus the flak jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the

unweighed fear. It should be noted that Ted Lavender popped a tranquilizer just before his death, trying to lift the pressure of the war right before it was eternally lifted. He died without a chance to use his extra ammunition: no amount of vigilance or firepower from Ted or the others could have saved him. Jimmy Cross blamed himself for Teds death, but would it not be more logical to blame the war itself? Jimmy blamed daydreaming about Martha for distracting him from combat, but couldnt the war be blamed for distracting Jimmy from fostering a love with Martha? After all, was Jimmy Cross not just a kid at war, in love (537)? Jimmy Cross inability to blame his situation provides insight to the meaning of the story as a whole. To Jimmy Cross, his tendency to escape the war by daydreaming made him an inadequate soldier. To the reader, all of the forms of escape used by the soldiers were coping mechanisms for boys, young boys, who never asked to be part of an endless war.