The War Of The Vietnam War

Going back to the Vietnam War and its effect on Mary Anne. At this point, it can be seen that Mary Anne has completely crossed over. She has a necklace of human tongues, which is crazy weird. However, Mary Anne is still wearing her culottes and her pink sweater, the very pieces of clothing that made her appear so American at the beginning of the story. The reason for Mary Anne’s change is not because of the Vietnamese or even Vietnam, even though it appeared to be at the beginning. It's the war itself. The war is half-Vietnamese and half-American. A example that shows Mary Anne going through her change is in the quote, "Mary Anne made you think about those girls back home, how clean and innocent they all are, how they'll never

However, this quote foreshadows what happens to her, seeing as many soldiers would be unnerved at Vietnam, yet Mary Anne, on the other hand, accepts her surroundings. “There was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it” (105). As a result of her acceptance, Rat comments on her having “ ...a necklace of human tongues” (105). The end result of Mary Anne’s transformation is finally shown here. It ties back to Tim O’brien’s belief that the solders had, “...no sense of the person behind [their stare].”

Mary Anne’s character showed increasingly inhuman and savage tendencies. "She wore a bush hat and filthy green fatigues; she carried the standard M-16 automatic assault rifle. Her face was black with charcoal"(11). In this sentence, Tim O'Brien described the changes that Mary Anne overcame from this young pure girl to this indigenous person living in a harsh jungle by describing her attire, a bush hat, M-16, and "her face was black with charcoal.” Through this sentence, Mary Anne, the character and behavior of soldiers change throughout the war, because this pure girl does not turn into a indigenous human like this without any reason.

The reader is first introduced to Mark Fossie’s girlfriend, Mary Anne Bell, when she comes to visit Mark in Vietnam. She is described as an energetic, flirtatious, coy, and beautiful girl. Shortly after we are introduced to Mary she cuts her hair, throws away her ambitions and has this almost haunting aura surrounding her. When Mark goes to ask her about it her response is, “It’s nothing, really nothing.

Mary Anne, the girlfriend of Mark Fossie, reveals the dark, savage side of war that many soldiers often hid through her evolution from small-town bell to a hunter of war. Before Mary Anne arrives at the camp, the soldiers make remarks about her and other women demonstrating that they thought the idea of women at war was nonsensical and if women were to join it would be at the benefit of the men. Mary Anne is first described to grow old with Fossie, “in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and have three yellow-haired children, and grow old together…” (O’Brien, 90) She later becomes curious about the village below their camp and wishes to venture into it to experience the heart of the

Mary Anne adjusted to the life in Vietnam, as did the soldiers that were there, and as time progressed she began to enjoy or get a thrill out of being in Vietnam. "I mean when we first got here-all of us- we were real young and innocent, full of romantic bullshit, but we learned pretty damn quick. And so did Mary Anne,"(97). The learning curve in war is quickened by the fact that it is a matter of life or death when you are working in a war, and it did not matter who you were the you quickly learned how to operate in a battle field. Mary Anne did not fit in a first and did not know or understand her role in the war, and just like the fresh soldiers coming from America did know or understand their role in the war. As the soldiers, as well as Mary Anne, begin to realize the realities of the war they move their focus away from their homes in America and begin to focus on the work that needed to be accomplished in Vietnam. The physical changes that occur to Mary Anne as she begins to be assimilated into the Vietnam War are like night and day. She came as your typical American girl, but then becomes a fighting soldier looking and anticipating ugly war

The more days Mary Anne spent in Vietnam the more she became interested in the culture of war discovering her curious nature. She would listen carefully to the stories she was told and was intrigued by the land and its mystery. Vietnam gave her a new strength, the ability to choose for herself where she would go and who she would become. Anne figuratively became “a different person… there was a new confidence in her voice, a new authority in the way she carried herself”. As Vietnam empowered Mary Anne and gave her a new personality the men could not understand and they began to see an inequity in Mary Anne, but in a true war story there is no morality. Mary Anne was just doing what the men have always done. She stopped taking baths, and spent more of her time hunting and exploring Vietnam with the Greenies. Sometimes she would get so cut up with the forest and sleep out, leaving Mark Fossie hopeless. Mark was able to notice the changes occurring in Mary Anne, this suddenly made him paranoid and extremely disturbed. Because Mark was not affected by the land like Anne was, he was unable to relate to Anne anymore because his way of viewing things, his perception and reality, is no longer

Later on, it turned out that she was with the Greenies in all of those nights, the Greenies is a group of formidable soldiers that focused on night ambush. At this points, everything begins to make more sense as well as creepier, first, Mary Anne changed her appearance so she can camouflage with the Greenies in the process of ambush. Then, according to Rat Kiley, her eyes turn into jungle greenish instead of the glowing blue after she returned from three weeks of her disappearance with the Greenies. The meaning of this is a clear mark that she had lost her pure innocence by experience the art of killing, she lost the joyful part of an American sweetheart and starting to accommodate with the very jungle that she been staring into, the very land of Vietnam. Lastly, Marry Anne and the Greenies developed Sadistic Personality Disorder according to “Psychology Today” as well as a animalistic

When Mary Anne arrives she is a happy, pretty, innocent young lady and she is very well liked by many. After a couple of days of being at camp Mary Anne starts participating more in the war and begins to distance herself from Mark. Mary Anne was too drawn into the war life “A haunted look, Rat said- partly terror, partly rapture. It was as if she

Often times, the decisions of choosing the two opposing extremes are made by an individual subconsciously, and thus, it is a strong reflection of their personality and character. “ But remember she’s been here a long time, she was here before most of us were born.” (Page 6)This shows Mary is more interested with the house’s past rather than its aesthetic value. She acknowledge the originality and

In the month of December of 1967, near Tam Quan in Vietnam, troops on a foot patrol from D-1-12 were on their way back to camp. While crossing a vulnerable spot in a rice paddy, the wood-line suddenly opened up with intense small arms fire in an all-out ambush on their position. Low on ammo, and with almost no cover, they radioed for assistance. The small infantry platoon hunkered as low to the ground as possible in what appeared to be the final moments of their lives, when suddenly the wood-line erupted into a cacophony of explosions, and out of nowhere a Chinook appeared. "At first, I thought it was our Admin/Log Bird who 'd tragically picked the wrong time to do re-supply, but that worry vanished when I realized it was coming to a

America has won the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Indian Wars, the Civil War, and are back-to-back winners of the World Wars. With the amount of victories made, Americans might try to process the question of who won the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War never had a declared victor. America got involved in the Vietnam War during the year of 1965. The United States first became involved in the war by financially supporting France in the first Indochina War. After that, Vietnam was separated from France’s control. South Vietnam and France were America’s allies. President Kennedy sent roughly 2,000 military advisors to South Vietnam for support. Soon, it became a much more preponderant number. The “Tet

American soldiers arrived in My Lai on March 16, 1968. These soldiers were members of

The Vietnam War was one of the most deadly wars in history, taking over three million lives during the 20-year war. It began in the mid 50’s, between Northern and Southern Vietnam. The United States joined the Vietnam War in 1965, and by 1969 there were about 500,000 U.S. soldiers involved with the war. The war began to slow down in ‘73 when President Nixon pulled the American troops, and the long hard war ended in 1975 after the Communists seized control.

In chapter 2, Mary road on a train to go to Misselthwaite Manor, her uncle’s house. She met Mrs. Medlock at the train station so she will take her to the manor. Misseithwaite Manor is a giant house with several gardens. At the manor she saw the gardens all around. In chapter 3 at the manor, Mary heard some disturbing moaning in the moor. It felt mysterious to be hearing crying at night. She wanted to see what