The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien chapter one The Things They Carried first leftenant Jimmy cross carried letters from A girl named Martha a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey they were not love letters but leftenant cross was hoping so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his ru sag in the late afternoon after a day's March he would dig his Foxhole wash his hands under a canteen unwrap the letters hold them with the tips of his fingers and spend the last hour of light pretending he would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire he would sometimes taste the envelope flaps knowing her tongue had been there more than anything he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her but the letters were mostly chatty elusive on the matter of love she was a virgin he was almost sure she was an English major at Mount Sebastian and she wrote beautifully about her professors and roommates and midterm exams about her respect for cha and her great affection for Virginia wolf she often quoted lines of poetry she never mentioned the war except to say Jimmy take care of yourself the letters weighed 4 ounces they were signed love Martha but leftenant cross understood that love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant at dusk he would carefully return the letters to his rucksack slowly a bit distracted he would get up and move among his men checking the perimeter then at full dark he would return to his Hall and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin The Things They Carried were largely determined by necessity among the Necessities or near Necessities were P38 can openers pocket knives heat tabs wrist watches dog tags mosquito repellent chewing gun candy cigarette salt tablets packets of Kool-Aid lighters matches sewing kits Military Payment certificates sea rations and two or three cantens of water together these items weighed between 12 and 18 pounds depending upon a man's habits or rate of metabolism Henry Dobbins who was a big man carried extra rations he was especially fond of canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound cake Dave Jensen who practiced field hygiene carried a toothbrush dental floss and several Hotel sized bars of soap he'd stolen on RNR in Sydney Australia Ted lavender who was scared carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of tan in mid April by necessity and because it was sop they all carried steel helmets that weighed 5 including the liner and camouflage cover They Carried the standard fatigue jackets and trousers very few carried underwear on their feet They Carried jungle boots2 2.1b and Dave Jensen carried three pairs of socks and a can of Dr Shaw's foot powder as a precaution against trench foot until he was shot Ted lavender carried six or seven ounces of Premium dope which for him was an assess Mitchell Sanders the RTO carried condoms Norman balker carried a diary rat Kylie carried comic books kioa a devout Baptist carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented to him by his father who taught Sunday School in Oklahoma City Oklahoma as a hedge against bad times however kioa also carried his grandmother's distrust of the white man his grandfather 's old hunting Hatchet necessity dictated because the land was mined and booby trapped it was sop for each man to carry a steel centered nylon covered Flack jacket which weighed 6.7 but which on hot days seemed much heavier because you could die so quickly each man carried at least one large compress bandage usually in the helmet band for easy access because the nights were cold and because the monsoons were wet each carried a green plastic Poncho that could be used as a raincoat or crown sheet or makeshift tent with its quilted liner the Poncho weighed almost 2 but it was worth every oun in April for instance when Ted lavender was shot they used his Poncho to wrap him up then to carry him across the Patty then to lift him into the chopper that took him away they were called legs or grunts to carry something was to hump it as when leftenant Jimmy cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps in its intransitive form to hump meant to walk or to March but it implied burdens far beyond the intransitive almost everyone hummed photographs in his wallet leftenant cross carried two photographs of Martha the first was was a coda color snapshot signed love though he knew better she stood against a brick wall her eyes were gray and neutral her lips slightly open as she stared straight on at the camera at night sometimes leftenant cross wondered who had taken the picture because he knew she had boyfriends because he loved her so much and because he could see the shadow of the picture taker spreading out against the brick wall the second photograph had been clipped from the 1968 Mount Sebastian yearbook it was an action shot women's volleyball and Martha was bent horizontal to the floor reaching the palms of her hands in sharp Focus the tongue taught the expression Frank and competitive there was no visible sweat she wore white gym shorts her legs he thought were almost certainly the legs of a virgin dry and without hair the left knee cocked and carrying her entire weight which was just over 117b leftenant cross remembered touching that left knee a dark theater he remembered and the movie was Bonnie and Clyde and Martha wore a Tweed skirt and during the final scene when he touched her knee she turned and looked at him in a sad sober way that made him pull his handback but he would always remember the feel of the Tweed skirt and the knee beneath it and the sound of the gunfire that killed Bonnie and Clyde how embarrassing it was how slow and oppressive he remembered kissing her good night at the dorm door right then he thought he should have done something Brave he should have carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long he should have risked it whenever he looked at the photographs he thought of new things he should have done What They Carried was partly a function of rank partly a field speciality as a first left tenant and platoon leader Jimmy cross carried a compass Maps code books binoculars and a 45 caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 lb fully loaded he carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men as an RTO Mitchell Sanders carried the PRC 25 radio a killer 26 PB with its battery as a medic rat Kylie carried a canvas Satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry including M&M's for especially bad wounds for a total weight of nearly 188 as a big man therefore a machine gunner Henry Dobbins carried the M60 which weighed 23 unloaded but which was almost always loaded in addition Dobbins carried between 10 and 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders as pfcs or spec fours most of them were common Grunts and carried the standard M16 gas operated assault rifle the weapon weighed 7.5b unloaded 8 2B with its full 20 round magazine depending on numerous factors such as topography and psychology The Rifleman carried anywhere from 12 to 20 magazines usually in cloth bandolas adding on another 8.4 lb at minimum 14 at maximum when it was available they also carried M16 maintenance gear rods and steel brushes and swabs and tubes of LSA oil all of which weighed about a pound among the grunts some carried the m79 grenade launcher 5.9 lb unloaded a reasonably light weapon except for the ammunition which was Heavy a single round weighed 10 ounces the typical load was 25 rounds but Ted lavender who was scared carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside tan K and when he went down under an exceptional burden more than 20 pounds of ammunition plus the flat jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizes of all the rest plus the unweighed fear he was dead weight there was no twitching or flopping kioa who saw it happen said it was like watching a rock fall or a big sandbag or something just boom then down not like the movies where the Dead Guy rolls around and does fancy spins and goes ass over te te Kettle not like that K said the poor bastard just flat fell boom down nothing else it was a bright morning in mid April leftenant cross felt the pain he blamed himself they stripped off lavender's canteens and ammo all the heavy things and rat Kylie said the obvious the guy's dead and Mitchell Sanders used his radio to report one us Kia a and to request a [Music] chopper then they wrapped Lavender in his Poncho They Carried him out to a dry Patty established security and sat smoking the Dead Man's dope until the chopper came leftenant cross kept to himself he pictured Martha's smooth young face thinking he loved her more than anything more than his men and now Ted lavender was dead because he loved her so much and could not stopped thinking about her when the dust off arrived They Carried la lavender aboard afterward they burned tan they marched until dusk then dug their holes and that night kioa kept explaining how you had to be there how fast it was how the poor guy just dropped like so much concrete boom down he said like cement in addition to the three standard weapons the M60 M16 and m79 They Carried whatever presented itself or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive They Carried catch as catch can at various times in various situations They Carried m-14s and K1 15s and Swedish KS and Greece guns and captured AK-47s and choms and RPGs and simonoff carbines and black Mar ues and 38 caliber Smith and Wesson handguns and 66 mm lws and shotguns and silencers and blackjacks and bayonets and C4 plastic explosives Lee strung carried a slingshot a weapon of Last Resort he called it Mitchell Sanders carried brass knuckles kioa carried his grandfather's feathered Hatchet every third or fourth man carried a Claymore anti-personnel Mine 3. 5B with its firing device they all carried fragmentation grenades 14 ounces each they all carried at least one M18 colored smoke grenade 24 o some carried CS or tear gas grenades some carried white phosphorus grenades They Carried all they could bear and then some including a silent awe for the terrible power of The Things They Carried in the first week of April before lavender died liutenant Jimmy cross received a good luck charm from Martha it was a simple Pebble an ounce at most smooth to the touch it was a milky white color with flex of orange and violet oval-shaped like a miniature egg in the accompanying letter Martha wrote that she had found the Pepple on the Jersey Shoreline precisely where the land touched water at high tide where things came together but also separated it was this separate but together quality she wrote that it 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 to a as a token of her truest feelings for him leftenant cross found this romantic but he wondered what her truest feelings were exactly and what she meant by separate but together he wondered how the tides and waves had come into play on that afternoon along the Jersey Shoreline when Martha saw the pebble and bent down to rescue it from geology he imagined bare feet Martha was a poet with the poet's sensibilities and her feet would be brown and bare the toenails unpainted the eyes chilly and somber like the ocean in March and though it was painful he wondered who had been with her that afternoon he imagined a pair of Shadows moving along the strip of sand where things came together but also separated it was Phantom jealousy he knew but he couldn't help himself he loved her so much on the March through the hot days of early April he carried the pebble in his mouth turning it with his tongue tasting sea salt and moisture his mind wondered 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 he would feel himself Rising Sun and waves and gentle winds all love and [Music] lightness What They Carried varied by Mission when a mission took them to the mountains they carried mosquito netting machetes canvas tops and extra bug juice if a mission seemed especially hazardous or if it involved a place they knew to be bad They carried everything they could in certain heavily minded AOS where the land was dense with toe poppers and bouncing betties they took turns humping a 28 pound mine detector with its head phones and big ing plate the equipment was a stress on the lower back and shoulders awkward to handle often useless because of the shrapnel in the Earth but they carried it anyway partly for safety partly for the illusion of safety on ambush or other night missions They Carried peculiar little odds and ends kioa always took along his new testament and a pair of moccasins for silence Dave Jensen carried Nightside vitamins high in carotene Lee Strunk carried his slingshot ammo he claimed would never be a problem rat Kylie carried Brandy and Eminem's candy until he was shot Ted lavender carried the Starlight scope which weighed 6.3 pounds with his aluminium carrying case Henry Dobbins carried his girlfriend's panty hose wrapped around his neck as a comforter they all carried ghosts when when dark came they would move out single file Across The Meadows and pades to their Ambush coordinates where they would quietly set up the Claymores and lie down and spend the night waiting other missions were more complicated and required special equipment in mid April it was their mission to search out and destroy the elaborate tunnel complexes in the tan area south of chuai to blow the tunnels They Carried one pound blocks of penite high explosives four blocks to a man 68 pound in all They Carried wiring detonators and battery powered clackers Dave Jensen carried earplugs most often before blowing the tunnels they were ordered by higher command to search them which was considered bad news but by and large they just Shrugged and carried out orders because he was a big man Henry Dobbins was excused from tunnel Duty the others would draw numbers before lavender died there were 17 men in the platoon and whoever drew the number 17 would strip off his gear and crawl in head first with a flashlight and left tenant cross's 45 caliber pistol the rest of them would fan out as security they would sit down or kneel not facing the hole listening to the ground beneath them imagining cobwebs and ghosts whatever was down there the tunnel wall squeezing in how the flashlight seemed impossibly heavy in the hand and how it was tunnel vision in the very strictest sense compression in all ways even time and how you had to wiggle in ass and elbows a swallowed up feeling and how you found yourself worrying about odd things will your flashlight go dead do rats carry rabies if you screamed how far would the sound carry would your buddies hear it would they have the courage to drag you out in some respects though not many The Waiting was worse than the tunnel itself imagination was a killer on April 16th when Lee strun drew the number 17 he laughed and muttered something and went down quickly the morning was hot and very still not good kioa said he looked at the tunnel opening then out across a dry Patty toward the village of tan nothing moved no clouds or birds or people as they waited the men smoked and drank Kool-Aid not talking much feeling sympathy for Lee Strunk but also feeling the luck of the draw you win some you lose some said Mitchell Sanders and sometimes you settle for a rain check it was a tired line and no one laughed Henry Dobbins ate a tropical chocolate bar Ted lavender popped a tranquilizer and went off to pee after five minutes liutenant Jimmy cross moved to the tunnel leaned down and examined the darkness trouble he thought a cave in maybe and then suddenly without willing it he was thinking about Martha the stresses and fractures the quick collapse the two of them buried alive under all that weight dense crushing love kneeling watching the whole he tried to concentrate on Lee drunk and the war all the dangers but his love was too much for him he felt paralyzed he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered he wanted her to be a virgin and not a virgin all at once he wanted to know her Intimate Secrets why poetry why so sad why that grain in her eyes why so alone not lonely just alone riding her bike across campus or sit setting sitting off by herself in the cafeteria even dancing she danced alone and it was the aloneness that filled him with love he remembered telling her that one evening how she nodded and looked away and how later when he kissed her she received the kiss without returning it her eyes Eyes Wide Open Not Afraid not a virgin's eyes just flat and uninvolved leftenant cross gazed at the tunnel but he was not there he was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey Shore they were pressed together and the pebble in his mouth was her tongue he was smiling vaguely he was aware of how quiet the day was the suen pades yet he could not bring himself to worry about matters of security he was beyond that he was just a kid at war in love he was 24 years old he couldn't help it a few moments later Lee strung crawled out of the tunnel he came up grinning filthy but alive liutenant cross nodded and closed his eyes while the others clapped Strunk on the back and made jokes about rising from the dead worms rat Kylie said right out of the Grave zombie the men laughed they all felt great relief spook City said Mitchell Sanders Lee Strunk made a funny ghost sound kind of Moaning yet very happy and right then when Strunk made that high happy moaning sound when he went a right then Ted lavender was shot in the head on his way back from peeing he lay with his mouth open the teeth were broken there was a swollen black bruise under his left eye the cheekbone was gone oh rat Kylie said the guy's dead the guy's dead he kept saying which seemed profound the guy's dead I mean really The Things They Carried were determined to some extent by Superstition leftenant cross carried his good luck Pebble Dave Jensen carried a rabbit's foot Norman balker otherwise a very gentle person carried a thumb that had been presented to him as a gift by Mitchell Sanders the thumb was dark brown rubbery to the touch and weighed 3 ounces at most it had been cut from a VC corpse a boy of 15 or 16 they'd found him at the bottom of an irrigation ditch badly burned flies in his mouth and eyes the boy wore black shorts and sandals at the time of his death he had been carrying a pouch of rice a rifle and three magazines of ammunition you want my opinion Mitchell Sanders said there's a definite moral here he put his hand on the dead boy's wrist he was quiet for a time as if counting a pulse then he patted the stomach almost affectionately and used K's hunting Hatchet to remove the thumb Henry Dobbins asked what the moral was moral you know moral Sanders wrapped the thumb in toilet paper and handed it across to Norman Bala there was no blood smiling he kicked the boy's head watched the flyes scatter and said it's like that old TV show Paladin have gun we'll travel Henry Dobbins thought about about it yeah well he finally said I don't see no moral there it is man off They Carried Uso stationary and pencils and pens They Carried Sterno safety pins trip flares signal flares spools of wire razor blades chewing tobacco liberated jaw sticks and statuettes of The Smiling Buddha candles grease pencils the Stars and Stripes fingernail clippers scops leaflets Bush Hats bolos and much more twice a week when the resupply Choppers came in They Carried hot Chow in green M mermite cans and large canvas bags filled with iced beer and soda pop They Carried plastic water containers each with a two gallon capacity Mitchell Sanders carried a set of starched tiger fatigues for special occasions Henry Dobbins carried Black Flag insecticide Dave Jensen carried empty sandbags that could be filled at night for added protection Lee Strunk carried tanning lotion Some Things They Carried in common taking turns They Carried the big pc77 Scrambler radio which weighed 30 with its battery they shared the weight of memory they took off what others could no longer bear often They Carried each other the wounded or weak They Carried infections They Carried chest sets basketballs Vietnamese English dictionaries Insignia of rank bronze stars and purple hearts plastic cards imprinted with the code of conduct They Carried diseases among them malaria and dentry They Carried lice and ringworm and leeches and Patty algae and various rots and molds They Carried the land itself Vietnam the place the soil a powdery orange red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces They Carried the sky the whole atmosphere They carried it the humidity the monsoons the stink of fungus and decay all of it They Carried gravity they moved like mules by daylight they took sniper fire at night they were mortared but it was not battle it was just the endless March Village to Village without purpose nothing won or lost they marched for the sake of the March they plotted along slowly dumbly leaning forward against the Heat unthinking all Blood and Bone simple grunts soldiering with their legs toiling up the hills and down into the pades and across the rivers and up again and down just humping one step and then the next and then another but no volition no will because it was automatic it was anatomy and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage the hump was everything a kind of inertia a kind of emptiness a dullness of desire and intellect and conscious and hope and human Sensibility their principles were in their feet their calculations were biological they had no sense of strategy or Mission they searched the villages with out 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 They Carried their own lives the pressures were enormous In the Heat of early afternoon they would remove their helmets and Flack jackets walking bare which was dangerous which but which helped ease the strain they would often discard things along the route of March purely for Comfort they would throw away rations blow their Claymores and grenades no matter because by Nightfall The resupply Choppers would arrive with more of the same then a day or two later still more fresh watermelons and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and Woolen sweaters the resources were stunning sparklers for the 4th of July colored eggs for Easter it was the Great American war chest the fruits of science the Smoke Stacks the can the canaries the arsenals at Hartford the Minnesota forests the machine shops the vast fields of corn and wheat They Carried like freight trains They carried it on their backs and shoulders and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam all the Mysteries and unknowns there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry after the chopper took lavender away leftenant Jimmy cross LED his men into the village of tan they burned everything they shot chickens and dogs they trashed the village as well they called in artillery and watched the wreckage then they marched for several hours through the hot afternoon and then at dusk while kioa explained how lavender died leftenant cross found himself trembling he tried not to cry with his entrenching tool which weighed 5 pounds he began digging a hole in the earth he felt shame he hated himself 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 all he could do was dig he used his entrenching tool like an axe slashing feeling both love and hate and then later when it was full dark he sat at the bottom of his Foxhole and wept it went on for a long while in part he was grieving for Ted lavender but mostly it was for Martha and for himself because she belonged to another world which was not quite real and because she was a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey a poet and a virgin and uninvolved and because he realize she did not love him and never would like cement kioa whispered in the dark I swear to God boom down not a word I've heard this said Norman Baler a piss miss you know still zipping himself up Zapped while zipping all right fine that's enough yeah but you had to see it the guy just I heard man cement so why not shut the up kioa shook his head sadly and glanced over at the hole where leftenant Jimmy cross sat watching the night the air was thick and wet a warm dense fog had settled over the patties and there was the Stillness that precedes rain after a time kide one thing for sure he said the left tenants in some deep hurt I mean that crying Jack the way he was carrying on it wasn't fake or anything it was real heavy dutti hurt the man cares sure Norman balus said say what you want the man does care we all got problems not lavender no I guess not falus said do me a favor though shut up that's a smart Indian shut up shrugging kioa pulled off his boots he wanted to say more just to lighten up his sleep but instead he opened his new testament and arranged it beneath his head as a pillow the fog made things seem Hollow and unattached he tried not to think about Ted lavender but then he was thinking how fast it was no drama dead and down and how it was hard to feel anything except surprise it seemed unchristian he wished he could find some great sadness or even anger but the emotion wasn't there and he couldn't make it happen mostly he felt pleased to be alive he liked the smell of the New Testament under his cheek the leather and ink and paper and glue whatever the chemicals were he liked hearing the sounds of night even his fatigue it felt fine the stiff muscles and the prickly awareness of his own body a floating feeling he enjoyed not being dead lying there kioa admired leftenant Jimmy cross's capacity for grief he wanted to share the man's pain he wanted to care as Jimmy cross cared and yet when he closed his eyes all he could think was boom down and all he could feel was the pleasure of having his boots off and the fog curling in around him and The Damp soil and the Bible smells and the plush comfort of night after a moment Norman Baler sat up in the dark what the hell he said you want to talk talk tell it to me forget it no man go on one thing I hate is a silent Indian for the most part they carried themselves with poise a kind of dignity now and then however there were times of panic when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and their fathers hoping not to die in different ways it happened to all of them afterward when the firing ended they would blink and PE up they would touch their bodies feeling shame then quickly hiding it they would force themselves to stand as if in slow motion frame by frame the world would take on the old logic absolute silence then the wind then sunlight then voices it was the burden of being alive awkwardly the men would resemble themselves first in private then in groups become soldiers again they would repair the leaks in their eyes they would check for casualties call in dust offs light cigarettes try to smile clear their throats and spit and begin cleaning their weapons after a time someone would shake his head and say no lie I almost my pants and someone else would laugh which meant it was bad yes but the guy had obviously not his pants it wasn't that bad and in any case nobody would ever do such a thing and then go ahead and talk about it they would squint into the dense oppressive sunlight for a few moments perhaps they would fall silent lighting a joint and tracking its passage from man to man inhaling holding in the humiliation scary stuff one of them might say but then someone else would grin or flick his eyebrows and say Roger Dodger almost cut me a new almost there were numerous such poses some carried themselves with a sort of wistful resignation others with pride or stiff soldierly discipline or good humor or Macho Zeal they were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it they found jokes to tell they used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness greased they'd say offed lit up Zapped while zipping it wasn't cruelty just stage presence they were actors when someone died it wasn't quite dying because in a curious way it seemed scripted and because they had their lines mostly memorized irony mixed with tragedy and because they called it by other names as if to insist and destroy the reality of death itself they kicked corpses they cut off thumbs they talked grunt lingo they told stories about Ted lavender's supply of tranquilizers how the poor guy didn't feel a thing how incredibly tranquil he was there's a moral here said Mitchell Sanders they were waiting for lavender's Chopper smoking the Dead Man's dope the moral is pretty obvious Sanders said and winked stay away from drugs no joke they'll ruin your day every time cute said Henry Dobbins mindblower get it talk about Wiggy nothing left just blood and brains they made themselves laugh there it is they'd say over and over there it is my friend there it is as if the repetition itself were an act of poise a balance between crazy and almost crazy knowing without going there it is which meant be cool Let It Ride be oh yeah man you can't change what can't be changed there it is there it absolutely and positively and well is they were tough They Carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die grief Terror love longing these were intangibles but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity they had tangible weight They Carried shameful memories They Carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained the instinct to run or freeze or hide and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all for it could never be put down it required perfect balance and perfect posture They Carried their reputations They Carried the solders greatest fear which was the fear of blushing men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to it was what had brought them to the war in the first place nothing positive no dreams of Glory or honor just to avoid the blush Of Dishonor they died so as not to die of embarrassment they crawled into tunnels and walked point and advanced Under Fire each morning despite the unknowns they made their legs move they endured they kept humping they did not submit to the obvious alternative which was simply to close the eyes and fall so easy really go limp and Tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would Roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world a mere matter of falling yet no one ever fell it was not courage exactly the object was not valah rather they were too frightened to be cowards by and large They Carried these things inside maintaining The Masks of composure they sneered at siik call they spoke bitterly about guys who had found release by shooting off their own Toes or fingers they'd say candy asses it was fierce mocking talk with only a trace of Envy or awe but even so the image played itself out behind their eyes they imagined the muzzle against flesh so easy squeeze the trigger and blow away a toe they imagined it they imagined the quick sweet pain then the evacuation to Japan then a hotel with warm beds and cute gisha nurses and they dreamed of Freedom birds at night on guard staring into the dark they were Carried Away by jumbo Jets they felt the rush of takeoff gone they yelled and then Velocity Wings and engines a smiling stess but it was more than a plane it was a real bird a big Sleek silver a bird with feathers and Talons and high screeching they were flying the weights fell off there was nothing to Bear they laughed and held on tight feeling the cold slap of wind and altitude soaring thinking it's over I'm gone they were naked they were light and free it was all lightness bright and fast and buoyant light as light a helium buz in the brain a giddy bubbling in the lungs as they were taken up over the clouds and the war Beyond Duty Beyond gravity and mortification and Global entanglements sin Loy they yelled I'm sorry but I'm out of it I'm goofed I'm on a space Crews I'm gone and it was a restful unencumbered sensation just riding the light waves sailing that big silver Freedom bird over the mountains and oceans Over America over the Farms and great sleeping cities and cemeteries and highways and the golden arches of MacDonald's it was flight a kind of fleeing a kind of falling falling higher and higher spinning off the edge of the Earth and Beyond the Sun and through the vast silent vacuum where there were no burdens and where everything weighed exactly nothing gone they screamed I'm sorry but I'm gone and so at night not quite dreaming they gave themselves over to likeness they were carried they were purely [Music] born on the morning after Ted lavender died first leftenant Jimmy cross crouched at the bottom of his Foxhole and burned Martha's lettuce then he burned the two photographs there was a steady rain falling which made it difficult but he used heat tabs and Sterno to build a small fire screening it with his body holding the photographs over the ti tight blue flame with the tips of his fingers he realized it was only a gesture stupid he thought sentimental too but mostly just stupid lavender was dead you couldn't burn the blame besides the letters were in his head and even now without photographs leftenant cross could see Martha playing volleyball in her white gym shorts and yellow t-shirt he could see her moving in the rain when the fire died down leftenant Cross pulled his Poncho over his shoulders and ate breakfast from a can there was no great mystery he decided in those burned letters Martha had never mentioned the war except to say Jimmy take care of yourself she wasn't involved she signed the Letter's love but it wasn't love and all the fine lines and technicalities did not matter virginity was no longer an issue he hated her yes he did he hated her love too but it was a hard hating kind of love the morning came up wet and blurry everything seemed part of everything else the fog and Martha and the deepening rain he was a soldier after all half smiling leftenant Jimmy cross took out his Maps he shook his head hard as if to clear it then bent forward and and began planning the day's March in 10 minutes or maybe 20 he would Rouse the men and they would pack up and head West where the map showed the country to be green and inviting they would do what they had always done the rain might add some weight but otherwise it would would be one more day layed upon all the other days he was realistic about it there was that new hardness in his stomach he loved her but he hated her no more fantasies he told himself henceforth when he thought about Martha it would be only to think that she belonged elsewhere he would shut down the Daydreams this was not Mount Sebastian it was another world where there were no pretty poems or midterm exams a place where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity K was right boom down and you were dead never partly dead briefly in the rain leftenant cross saw Martha's gray eyes gazing back at him he understood it was very sad he thought the things men carried inside the things men did or felt they had to do he almost nodded at her but didn't instead he went back to his Maps he was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence it wouldn't help lavender he knew that but from this point on he would comport himself as an officer he would dispose of his good luck Pebble swallow it maybe or use Lee drunk slingshot or just drop it along the trail on the March he would impose strict field discipline he would be careful to send out flank security to prevent straggling or bunching up to keep his troops moving at the proper pace and at the proper interval he would insist on clean weapons he would confiscate the remainder of lavender's dope later the day perhaps he would call the men together and speak to them plainly he would accept the blame for what had happened to Ted levender he would be a man about it he would look them in the eyes keeping his chin level and he would issue the new Sops in a calm impersonal tone of voice a left tenant's voice leaving no room for argument or discussion commencing immediately he tell them they would no longer abandon equipment along the route of March they would police up their acts they would get their together and keep it together and maintain it neatly and in good working order he would not tolerate laxity he would show strength distancing himself among the men there would be grumbling of course and maybe worse but their days would seem longer and their loads heavier but leftenant Jimmy cross reminded himself that his obligation was not to be loved but to lead he would dispense with love it was not now a factor and if anyone quarreled or complained he would simply tighten his lips and arrange his shoulders in the correct command posture he might give a Curt little nod or he might not he might just shrug and say carry on and then they would saddle up and form into a column and move out towards the villages west of tan