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the entire platoon in danger, and cost a life.

Cross was unwillingly thinking about Martha during a dangerous mission. He was distracted when his men needed his awareness and competence the most. Instead of setting an example of discipline for his men, he served as a model for escapism. Through his habitual distraction, he set an example to his men of how to react to and deal with war. While he was fantasizing about Martha, "Henry Dobbins ate a tropical chocolate bar" as if he were on a resort or at home in his living room (11). "Ted Lavender popped a tranquilizer and went off to pee" as if it were an aspirin and he was in his backyard in suburban America. "And suddenly, without willing it, he was thinking about Martha. He tried to concentrate on Lee Strunk and the war, all the dangers, but his love was too much for him" (11). Imagination is described as a killer because escaping reality and submerging oneself in distraction is dangerous, not only to the person escaping, but also to those around him. Lt. Cross was hooked on the drug of "escapism." He could not kick the habit. "He could not bring himself to worry about matters of security. He couldn't help it. Lieutenant Cross gazed at the tunnel. But he was not there" (12). It was during this moment that Ted Lavender was shot while urinating. Cross hated himself and was deeply ashamed because he knew that he had let Lavender down. It was through his negligence that Lavender had died. Had he not been so lost in his love for Martha, in his debilitating fantasy world, the boy may have lived. "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" (16). War was everything. There was no "after the war." It had no end and the soldiers lives had no chance to begin again, so rationally, Cross must carry his guilt for the rest of the war, meaning for the rest of his life, for the rest of eternity. Martha "belonged to another world, which was not quite so real," and therefore, she did not belong in war (17). She was a dangerous thing in war.

Lt. Cross resolved to banish imagination from his mind, and become a better leader by entering reality. In reality, he knows that Martha does not love him, and this makes him hate her. In reality, he knows that Vietnam is a place, "where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity" (24). In reality, he knows that he could not escape the war through

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