Items Carried: ● Anxiety/ Fear The anxiety and fear Ted Lavender carries characterizes him as an anxious soldier who cannot handle the realities of the war without having drugs. This fear weighs Lavender down. ● Tranquilizers The tranquilizers that Ted Lavender carried shows that he was anxious because he used the tranquilizers to calm himself down. Also, the tranquilizers shows the way Ted Lavender uses to cope with the reality of the war. ● Extra ammunition Ted Lavender carried 34 rounds of ammunition, but the typical load of ammunition was 25. The extra ammunition shows that Ted Lavender was scared and precautious. Although Lavendar took precautions by carrying extra ammunition, he was still killed. This is ironic because the extra ammunition was meant to protect him, but it weighed him down and made him fall quicker when he was killed. Quotes: 1. “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried 34 rounds when he was shot and killed outside Than Khe, and he went down under an exceptional burden, more than 20 pounds of ammunition, plus the flask jacket and helmet and rations and water and toilet paper and tranquilizers and all the rest, plus the unweighted fear” (O’Brien 6). This quote characterizes Ted Lavender as an anxious soldier who was precautious, but his precaution did not save him …show more content…
The bluntness of the introduction of Ted Lavender’s death shows how sudden his death was and how death was an ordinary occurrence in the Vietnam war. Ted Lavender’s death plays a significant role in the novel. He carried tranquilizers and extra ammunition as precaution and a way to calm himself; however, he was still killed. His death is ironic because the items that were meant to protect him ended up weighing him down, which made him fall quicker when he was killed. This shows how no object could prevent the soldiers from dying and how death was a worry constantly on the soldiers