"Sweetheart" of the Song Tra Bong

       I don’t think the reason for Mary Anne’s drastic change in personality can’t be isolated. It was not one thing or a person who changed her, rather Vietnam. The environment of constant fear and to be surrounded by the gore of war which creates constant uncertainty and an overflow of emotions is what made Mary Anne wild and created the stranger girl who they once thought to be the walking image of sweet America, home.  Her interest in war and all that had to with it gave us an insight to what was to come. “Mary Anne Bell was no timid child. She was curious about things. During her first days in country she liked to roam around the compound asking questions.” As if foreshadowing that this girl was not like the usual, it became evident that her personality was certainly going to become a factor while in Vietnam.           
      With Mary Anne, I don’t think her femininity ever became an impediment or a motive, it was never the most influential and I think the reason for this, is her personality very much proved to be more important than her gender.   She became lost in the land, a part of it and once she did, she became free, “I feel close to myself. When I’m out there at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything…” I think everyone has that savage, inhuman, creature inside of them, just that for some people, it shows itself before others, regardless of gender.
         O’Brien letting Rat Kiley tell part of this story created an exaggerated effect and an extent to Mary Anne’s story and the reason why he let Kiley tell the story. As O’Brien said before, a war story always depends on prospective, nobody sees the same thing. When Rat is telling the story, he does not include a moral, facts and makes it so a certain degree, unbelievable, making it fit the criteria for what O’Brien says should be a true war story.