Lt.jimmy Cross
... of Than Khe area of Vietnam. He repeatedly sent his troops to sweep the tunnels that the NVA used to move around weapons and personnel. On one such tunnel sweep a young soldier by the name of Ted Lavender was shot and killed when Lt. Cross was having one of his fantasies about Martha. While he was day dreaming Lavender took a tranquilizer pill and then wandered off into the jungle to “relieve” himself, while on his way back young lavender was shot once through the head and then proceeded to hit the ground in one quick motion. A scene that will haunt Lt. Cross thoughts and dreams for the rest of the story. Though not quite as Blood and guts as Lt. Crosses battles with the NVA, his battles with his love of Martha and his duties to his troops is equally if not more important to his characters development. Lt. Cross is constantly thinking of her and of what she might be doing and who she might be doing it with? His thoughts of her are so persistent that even in the heat of battle she pops into his head. He dreams about her walking down the beach barefoot, he has almost a fetish over her feet burying in the sand and the water rushing over her, etc. Its really is very disturbing to think that he dreams about things like that when people not more than twenty feet from him are getting their heads shot off by enemy troops. One fuel for his fire of lust is the letters that Martha sends him on a regular basis. These are not by any means love letters but are more of a curtacie that she is taking the time to write him. Lt. Cross really does understand this but is lead on by the fact that she ends every one of the letters with “Love, Martha”. That is what driv...