As the leader of the platoon, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross feels like he is the reason for the deaths of the men in his company. He takes blame for the majority of their deaths, because he thinks he has failed the men somehow. Though he is the leader of the platoon, he is unable to control everything the men do.
When a man died, there had to be blame. Jimmy Cross understood this. You could blame the war… A moment of carelessness or bad judgment or plain stupidity carried consequences that lasted forever. (177)
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross blames himself for the death of Kiowa. He considers all the things the can be blamed for this – the war, voters, the rain, etc. However, he blames himself intensely, while the blame is quite universal. Unfortunately, Jimmy Cross chose to camp out on the field even though the Vietnamese women warned him. He, in fact, is part of the reason for Kiowa’s death.
Tim O’Brien’s character also shows an intense amount of emotion. When Kiowa passes away, O’Brien breaks down and struggles through the situation. He blames himself for being somewhat of a coward in a situation he could have been a hero.
Like Jimmy Cross, the boy was explaining things to an absent judge. It wasn't to defend himself. The boy recognized his own guilt and wanted only to lay out the full causes. (170)
O’Brien automatically accepts full responsibility for Kiowa’s death. Tim does not even try to be rational in the situation. Instead, he goes over every possible thing he could have done wrong that would have caused this to happen. He goes into detail about how he turned on the flashlight to show Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend and everything started to go crazy. Overall, it was a mistake for O’Brien to turn the flashlight on and give away their position. However, he cannot blame himself for everything.
"Ten billion places we could've set up last night, the man picks a latrine." (166)
Later we heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight. (66)
“Jimmy Cross did not want the responsibility of leading these men. He has never wanted it.” (167)
There were many bodies, real bodies with real faces, but I was young then and I was afraid to look. And now, twenty years later, I'm left with faceless responsibility and faceless grief. (180)
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