This, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful stories
in the entire collection that Tim O'Brien produced. All of his stories, to one extent or
another, reflect on the theme of how innocent American youths, lots of them still
teenagers, are impacted by the war in Vietnam which they find themselves fighting, and
are changed, for the better and for the worse. However, the change that occurs in Mary
Anne is incredible, dramatic and unforgettable. Joining a military operations group
which carries out missions in the jungle, without the safety of a camp or sandbags,
awakens in her a thirst and a desire for danger and violence that she never knew she
possessed. The way that she is shown to be singing, wearing a grotesque necklace made up
of Vietnamese tongues around her neck suggests that the experience of Vietnam has
changed her for the worse, irrevocably. Note what she says to her
fiance:
"Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I
ant to swallow the whole country--the dirt, the death--I just want to eat it and have it
there inside me. That's how I feel. It's like... this
appetite."
Her eventual
disappearance and the rumours that surround her continued life and work in the jungles
of Vietnam show how war impacts young, impressionable soldiers with often tragic
results, opening them to a world of violence, darkness and evil.
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