Question #5

Mary Anne Bell comes across as a traitor through most of the chapter. She appears in Vietnam unannounced and began by helping out in the time of war. She volunteered with cooking and tending to casualties from the war. Both her love for Fossie and Fossie's love for her grew stronger with each new day of her being there. Despite the fact, that Fossie felt that she should have gone home, she resisted after being too caught up with the war and her new surroundings. She disappears one night unknowingly and leaves Fossie with questions as to where she is. She arrives back the next day after worrying Fossie then they decide to officially become engaged. Even though this happens, she disappears once again for days leaving Fossie with no answers as to where she is. He discovers her in the Special Forces hut where she is wearing a necklace made out of human tounges and she states how he does not understand the land. She is depicted as "tease" for Fossie. He must deal with war day in and day out and then must deal with his "fiancé." She only comforted him for a short while before she abandoned him for the "Vietnam land." Her curiosity got the best of her and left Fossie behind.

While your perspective on Mary Anne is supported by your post, I do not see her as a traitor. Mary Anne is another perfect example on how the war changes people. Before she visited Fossie in Vietnam, she was a regular youthful girl. Then when she entered the environment, obvious changes were present. Because Mary Anne is so young, her actions displayed that she was to immature to handle her situation, and I do not believe she should be labeled as a traitor because of this fact. It was clear that she did make mistakes in becoming to attached to her environment by not wanting to leave and participating in the Vietnamese tribal meeting, but again this was because she was changed by the war. Before this happened, Fossie and her were talking about getting married and living an every day life. Then, she started to change which displayed her immaturity at such a young age in the war.

I agree with most of this response to Question 5. Mary Anne Bell certainly became a traitor in Rat's story in the chapter "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong". Although Mary did come to Vietnam, it was not unannounced because Fossie messaged her money to come visit. Coming from a bet between Fossie and the other medics of Tra Bong, Fossie decided that because he missed his girlfriend, Mary, he figured he would send her to Vietnam. Fossie did not know that this would cause the ultimate end to their relationship. Mary met the medics of Tra Bong with a peppy attitude, and gave off her very feministic aura. As her time in Vietnam prolonged, she seemed to become more masculine, helping with the duties of the soldiers on a regular basis. This caused her to lose a sense of her normal, feministic personality, much like the rest of the soldiers with thier personalities. She begins to distance herself further from the medics and, especially, Fossie. Mary abruptly goes missing for several nights, causing Fossie to worry about her well-being. She ends up being with the secretive Green Berets in the woods, where she gained the ultimate adreniline rush of which she enjoyed. When Fossie sees her again, in the Greenies hut at the corner of the medics compound, she has lost all sense of herself and feels no tie to the people she first met when she came. She ultimately disappeared forever in the woods of Tra Bong. Mary betrayed her relationship with Fossie and the other medics by leaving them for the "Vietnam land", causing her to be a traitor.

I don't see Mary Ann as a traitor at all. I believe she is just a mirror image of what is really happening to the soliders. They are no longer who they were when they were drafted. The boys were robbed of innocence, purity, and self worth. They no longer feel emotion or wonder aimlessly about the good things in life and dream for the future. Mary Ann was a symbol of all of those things. She went through the process of changing from someone who was pure and innocent, to someone who was tuff and hard, then someone rotten. She became what the soliders are on the inside. Who their character is becoming. The war is rotting them. Mary Ann is just the image of something that is not visible or tangible.