Loss of Innocence at Its Finest

In response to Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

Mary Anne had gone through an abundance of changes from the very beginning of her arrival in Vietnam. She started off as almost a classic girly-girl, makeup and hair nicely done, outfit clean and “bubbly personality, a happy smile” (O’Brien 95). She also spent all her time with her boyfriend, who was one of the soldiers in Vietnam, who had her come visit. While she had been this very young, innocent, and coy character, she had also been very curious. She would “roam around the compounds asking questions: What exactly was a trip flare? How did a Claymore work? What behind those scary green mountains to the West? Then she’d squint and listen quietly while somebody filled her in” (O’Brien 95). Gradually, she began to change her hair and clothes to a less feminine look and to a more simple and casual look. Her personality, mentality, and morality changed from happy and bright to a more blank and almost numbing feeling. She started really seeing the effects of war as she would help injured soldiers and even disappear and go on ambushes without telling anyone, and those “scary green mountains” became more interesting to her. Once the change was in full swing, she had worn a necklace of human tongues and stayed with a group of hunters called Greenies. She had completely alienated herself from everything she was before. Eventually, she had left into the green mountains of Vietnam and never came back.

This drastic change in Mary Anne had occurred due to her getting to experience the war. There were two different realities that people lived during the war. There was a huge difference between living and experiencing the war first hand versus hearing news about the war and not actually fighting in it. The change represented the loss of innocence that not just Mary Anne felt, but many soldiers during this gruesome war. This metamorphosis that occurred in Mary Anne had taken about six weeks to happen, however it had continued with her till she disappeared for good. The entire experience of war had been too much for her to handle and she may not have even known it. She was lost and numb to the fact that she was changing into a completely different human being that seemed hardly human at all. While the change had been clear to both the soldiers and the reader, it wasn’t easy for her to see. The change was extremely difficult for her boyfriend to watch and experience, “It was as though he had trouble recognizing her. She wore a bush hat and filthy green fatigues; she carried the standard M-16 automatic assault rifle; her face was black with charcoal” (O’Brien 102). While she thought she was possibly finding her “true self”, that was hardly the case, because she was turning into something that was hardly life-like. The effects of war were so cruel and harsh, that it could drive a person completely mad without their knowledge.

There is this idea that because Mary Anne was a woman, it made the story so much more tragic and sad, however, that is not true. There was already this constant lament for men in war who had been scarred, and the idea that this was about a woman was somehow worse. The soldiers in the story may have thought that due to the fact that in that time it was very rare that a woman would handle herself as a soldier would and that a woman would go outside of society’s social norms. It goes along with this idea that women cannot do much for themselves in the way of having their own protection and being able to fight their own battles. While it is true that she was a woman who had at first been very feminine and the idea woman in that society, the loss of innocence would affect anyone and be equally sad for any person, and especially with the Vietnam War being as horrendous as it was, the effects would be equally as scarring to a man as it would be for a woman.