" 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." (pg. 16)
Referring to my first post, in this part of the book, O'Brien compares the feeling of carrying regret to carrying a stone in his stomach. Through a simile, he compares an intangible to a tangible. Somehow these emotional burdens were so gruesome that they started to take on an unbearable weight.
Lieutenant Cross let his unrequited love for a women thousands of miles away get in the way of his love and responsibility for his men. After Lavenders death, Cross burned and trashed everything including the village of Than Khe, the pictures of Martha, and letters from her. As a reader, I do not have much background on war and soldiers, but I feel like Lieutenant Cross was beating himself up for nothing. I know there has to be a strong bond between these men, but from my perspective, there was not much that could be done about Lavender's death. He was shot in the head while going to use the restroom. Yes, I do think Cross's actions fed from the death of Lavender, but I believe they also came from Cross's realization that Martha and the world he used to know were also dead to him.
I liked this chapter because it is relatable by all. We may not be in war, but we experience great losses that snap us into reality. While daydreaming about Martha, Cross lost Lavender. It took this great loss to make him realize that in the war, his men came first.
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