Love VS. War In Tim O’ Brien short story “The Things They Carried”, Tim shares his memories with the reader about the war and the items some of the soldiers carried. Each solider had specific items that they were required to carry for the war, but they also carried things that were important and meaningful to them. The reader could tell that the items were important because no matter how much weight the soldiers already had to carry, they made room for more. Most of the soldiers carried a limited amount of an item that had the same meaning or belonged to the same person. However, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried multiple items who belonged a women by the name of Martha. He loves and cares for Martha in a way that she doesn’t love and care for him. Cross still has hope that she will start to have feelings for him but every time she writes him, the letters are friendly and chatty. The two of them met at a college in New Jersey and they went on a date together to watch a movie some time before Cross left for war. During that movie date, Cross tried to hold onto her knee but she pushed his hand off. Now, every time Cross fantasizes about Martha, he has thoughts about what he should’ve did the night after the movie date. Although the feelings aren’t mutual between the two, they still communicate through letters as friends. Majority of the items Cross carried were related to Martha and caused him to fantasize about her and the relationship he wished they had. Lieutenant Cross struggled to focus on the war because of his fantasies about Martha.
One of the items that Martha sent to Lieutenant is a pebble. In the letter she wrote to him, she stated the pebble represented her feelings for him. “… She had found a pebble on the jersey shoreline, precisely where the land touched the water at high tides, where things came together but also separated.” Martha intentions on sending the pebble was to help comfort Lieutenant as he battled throughout the war. On the other hand, Cross thought the gift was a way of her explaining their connection with one another. “…He carried the pebble in his mouth, turning it with his tongue, tasting the sea salts moisture. His mind wandered. 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.” During those moments in war, Cross couldn’t keep his attention on the soldiers and the war. His fantasies caused him to blame himself for the death of one his soldier named Lavender. Lavender was sent into the tunnel to check it out for any explosives. Cross then begins to fantasize that him and Martha are in the tunnel and it begins to cave in and he becomes distracted. After Lavender is shot after coming from the bathroom. Cross still thinks about nobody other than Martha.
Finally, Cross begins to realize that the fantasies about Martha are not real and the pebble is only a distraction to the war. He take responsibility for Lavender’s death because he wasn’t concentrating on the war surrounding him. When Cross dispose of the pebble he believes that then he starts taking responsibility for the things that are surrounding him in the war and focuses more on being a leader.