In the book The Things They Carried the pressure that society put on young men to serve in the Vietnam war ultimately prevented O’Brien from having a choice in whether or not he wanted to serve. Due to the ways of society in the ‘60s O’Brien and many other young men were forced to go to war to prevent self shame from not fighting for their country. This caused a chain reaction later on because when the men watched others die around them, they felt guilty about what they could not stop. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, was struggling with a love crisis for most of the novel, he would find himself daydreaming and losing focus on the war, or watching over his troops. This led to one of his soldiers Ted Lavender to be shot while urinating, causing guilt