JImmy

Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is a twenty-four-year-old that has been put in a situation that is too much for him to take on. He has deep emotional problems that interfere with his ability to lead the seventeen, soon to be sixteen, men through the unforgiving lands of Vietnam. His strenuous situation leads him to be distracted with Martha whose letters he carries while he fantasizes a romance between them. It is his only defense to keep him somewhat sane. This failure of romance between Martha and Lieutenant Cross is a parallel to happenings of the war. “They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same.” Cross has no sense of what true love really is. He really does not know what he is searching for. Again and again he mulls over these fantasies trying to push them to the next level. He mentions several times that Martha is or is not a virgin. He wants to be the one take her virginity away from her, but no matter how far he goes with his fanaticizing nothing will change between him and Martha. Their situation will always be the same; yet, these fantasies are keeping him sane.

One may argue that the fantasies are actually making him deranged. He has been so distracted with Martha that he has not been able to focus on the troops and what really is important. The emotional baggage he carries because his relationship with Martha will never progress is killing his troops. Through the text, Cross, has been able to put the war behind him by fantasizing about Martha. At the end, the text contradicts itself and switches role that the letters and pictures play. They used to be something that kept the Lieutenant going, but in the end they pulled him down. Without burning the letters and pictures he would not have been able to keep going and would go insane. Instead of focusing on something that was impossible to attain, he needs to focus on the war right in front of him.