Power of Vietnam

Arrival:
"Mary Anne Bell was an attractive girl. Too wide in the shoulders maybe, but she had terrific legs, a bubbly personality, a happy smile." (pg. 90)

Couple weeks in:
"The was 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." (pg. 94)

With the Green Berets:
"In part it was her yes: utterly flat and indifferent. The was no emotion in her stare, no sense of the person behind it. But the grotesque part, he said, was her jewelry. At the girl's throat was a necklace of human tongues." (pg. 105)

These three quotations taken from the section Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bond show the progression that Mark Fossie's girlfriend went through when she came to visit him in Vietnam and got hooked. Tim included this story to no doubt show the power Vietnam and the war had on people. This land changed her from a cute little seventeen year old girl into one of the Greenies in a matter of weeks. Mark Fossie's plan backfired. He went from having an adorable girlfriend whom he was to marry in the future to completely losing her to the wilderness of Vietnam. Nobody would've ever expected this to happen. If anything, I thought she would die from a disease or ask Mark if she could leave earlier than her expected departure date. She actually wanted to stay longer. She was changed by the power of Vietnam.