Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carrying Martha's letters and two photos of her, Henry Dobbins wearing his girlfriend's pantyhose around his neck as a lucky charm, and many other soldiers treasuring keepsakes from their girlfriends. Girls and women come up later in the book as we read about Mary Anne coming over to Vietnam, Tim O'Brien remembering Linda, and soldiers joking about "mama-sans" (a slang term used by American soldiers for any older Vietnamese women).
At first I thought, The women are what's keeping these guys sane, what gives them strength to fight and not give up. As we got further through the book, however, I realized that for these young and ambitious soldiers, too often girls mess up their lives, their thoughts, and their morals.
In many cases the problem isn't even in the girls themselves, but in the soldiers' psychology. In the short story The Things They Carried, we see Jimmy cross not exactly neglecting his duties, but spacing out in times of combat because his thoughts are full of Martha. For the rest of his life, he blames himself for Ted Lavender's death because he was perhaps "imagining," dreaming about Martha instead of being on his guard.
Henry Dobbins' obsession with his girl's pantyhose seems contrasting to Lieutenant Cross' situation--he doesn't get distracted from his war duties, but instead seems to gain a special invincible superpower with the pantyhose wrapped around his neck. That could've been a positive female influence, but no! By the end of Stockings we find out that the girlfriend dumps Dobbins. "'No sweat,' he said. 'The magic doesn't go away'"(p.112) He seems to keep his positive joking attitude, but it's clear that something that has made life worth living is lost for him.
For Mark Fossie, I'll have to admit that I can neither blame him nor Mary Anne. Close high school buddies and intimate lovers in terms of peace, they have never had a hard trial of their relationship. War changes people. While it left Fossie soft and high-school-like, it made the 17-year-old Mary Anne a true warrior. I feel like their separation was inevitable the day Mary Anne stepped off the helicopter in Vietnam, but seeing Fossie's grief after his girlfriend dumps him and the party-loving platoon and joins the Greenies, I think he would've been better off not having a girlfriend at all or at least not bringing her to Vietnam.
In more minor scenes, we read about Normal Bowker seeing his girlfriend married to another man and a young soldier (very likely Tim?) bringing around enemy fire by lighting a flashlight to show Kiowa a picture of his girlfriend. The only girl who has had a positive influence on one of the soldiers is Linda for Tim, but even she dies and leaves a scar in his life (okay, maybe that's going too far, can't blame her for her illness).
Throughout many of the stories we've read, we see the soldiers craving for female companionship and cherishing memories of girls at home. These girls are the warmest memories the men have to carry with them. Maybe it's because the soldiers are too young for strong lasting relationships, or too vulnerable and not always mature to make wise decisions, but I felt like these guys would've had a lighter weight to carry and could've been happier men without the girls on their minds.
