Ted Lavender's death wasn't his fault at all. Jimmy Cross was only a young man and not quite mature to be a First Lieutenant. Jimmy Cross daydreams and fantasies of letters and photos of Martha. Allow him to escape the war, think about life at home. The Vietnam War was a very repetitive daily life because they had no clear mission. They simply matched village to village doing the same things over and over again. Ted Lavender's death was a great tragedy of the Vietnam War and it wasn't Jimmy's fault