O'Brien proves to us through his chapter, "The Things They Carried," that unrequited love is the most pure and enduring of all memories because it is the memory of what never was. Through the characterizations of Lieutenant Jimmy Cross and Martha, O'Brien shows the reader that love can be easily confused with fantasy, however, that doesn't diminish the rapture of unrealized thoughts or actions.
"He wanted to know her. Intimate secrets: Why poetry? Why so sad? Why that grayness in her eyes? Why so alone? Not lonely, just alone and it was the aloneness that filled him with love" (11).
For Lieutenant Cross Martha is the clear representation of the life he could be living if there was no war. He holds onto her image as if it is his own personal deity. This causes the truth of the image to be swayed to Cross's imaginings when he can no longer take the reality of the war.
"Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But he was not there. He was buried with Martha under the white sand at the Jersey shore" (11).
Due to the war Cross is unable to see Martha for what she truly is, a kind friend, nothing more and nothing less. And when he does realize this his love only grows deeper and more eternal. He may burn her picture, but her image cannot be erased from his memory.
"It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do" (24).
He loves her because she is the dream captured in a most terrible reality that was Vietnam.
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