Summary Vs. Analysis

"Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,"

Summary

“Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” is about a soldier's girlfriend getting shipped to him in Vietnam. It is told from the perspective of Rat Kiley who happened to be in this guys squad at the time. The squad starts off talking, killing time, about how they should set up a little brothel right there in camp. Since there is no high ranking officers around they could get away with it pretty easy. One man takes the conversation to heart. Mark Fossie decides to buy his girlfriend, Mary Anne, plane tickets so she could come visit him during the war. The whole squad thinks he's nuts and it won't happen, but sure enough a couple weeks later his pretty girlfriend shows up to camp.

Everyone takes a liking to her right away. She is fun loving, happy, flirtatious, and genuinely easy to get along with. On top of all this she takes an interest in the military way of life and in Vietnam. She stops worrying about hygiene as much, and wants Mark to take her into the local village. Mark starts to get a little worried and tries to slow her down telling her how dangerous it is in Vietnam. Soon though she starts coming back to the barracks late and one night she doesn't even show up. Mark finds out she was going on “hunts” with the local Green Berets. She is now an altogether different person. Her once bright blue compassionate eyes have now taken on the color of the jungle, harsh and adventurous. Mary was once infatuated with Mark possibly in love with him, and now her thrill is the jungle that's all she can think about. The thrill of firefights and silence of shadows is what she looks for, not boys.

The story ends with Mark being miserable over the loss of his love, both in the fact that she left him and she is a changed woman. Rat tells how he might even love her more now then when she first stepped foot into camp. Mary representing to him, what the jungle can do to a person. The Green Berets are even amazed at the chances she begins to take. She doesn't take her rifle and half her gear most of the time they go on hunts now. The last anyone sees of her is walking off into the mountains by herself. No trace of her is ever found.

Analysis

War get's to everyone, know matter who you are. Here is this naive, cheerleader, happy go lucky girl, that comes to a war zone. She then turns into a cold blooded killer. You see the change very rapidly from a girl that is in love with her boyfriend, “Almost disgusting, Rat said, the way the mooned over each other.” (O'Brien 90), to a predator of the jungle. No matter how innocent a person is they will go through something so horrific and some people say beautiful experience, that they will be a changed individual forever. It's inconsequential whether it be for the good or for the bad, everyone is different. Mark Fossie might never be able to recoup after what he experienced, losing the love of his life. O'brien tells time and again how sickly Mark becomes, “His voiced seemed hollow and stuffed-up, nasal sounding ...” (O'Brien 95). Then again it might be for the good. Mary found an inner peace out in the jungle. She knows exactly who she is (O'Brien 106). War changes everyone. This man could of been your local fire fighter, ain't war hell (Full Metal Jacket). Tim O'Brien was trying to show us that war changes and us that have never been there will never know how much.

Tim O'Brien. “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”. Short story in “The Things They Carried”. Houghton    Mifflin, 1990. First Mariner Books Edition, 2009.

Pink Skirt. AlleyKatsStore.com

Burnt Faerie. Warrior Woman. Inependence. Tongue Girl Photoshop Picture Contest, 2009.