8. Quick Transitions and Adaptations

In the section Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, we first meet Mary Anne. It was kind of interesting to me to see her transition throughout her first three weeks in Vietnam. In only three weeks she became a completely different person. "...she quickly fell into the habits of the bush. No cosmetics, no fingernail filing. She stopped wearing jewelry, cut her hair short and wrapped it in a dark green bandanna. Hygiene became a matter of small consequence," (94). The main thing this book has done for me is allow me to recognize how much a war mentally and physically changes an individual. Their surroundings are different, they are with new people, new cultures. They are completely submersed in a new lifestyle. No one can experience all this without becoming a new person. O'Brien makes the war seem something almost animalistic. Everyone seems to forget their old ways and simply commit themselves to being "ready for the kill," (110).