Monday, January 25, 2010

Exploration Four: Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

The chapter that engaged me or stood out the most was the chapter "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. It engaged me the most because it tells the story of Rat Kiley as a medic and his friends. It tells the story of his friend Mark Fossie and his sweetheart Mary Anne. Mark Fossie loves his girlfriend so much that he flies her out there. So they can be there together for a while. It engages me because she comes as this sweet innocent little girl in love with Mark Fossie. Who loves being with Mark and together and is happy. She is curious and intrigued by everything. While she is there she becomes a different person. She ends up with the Greenies and is not innocent like she was. She doesn't seem to want to be with Mark as much and they begin to not like being with each other and put a show on as if they are happy. At the end of the chapter she becomes one of the Greenies and wears human tongues around her neck. She had really changed. I think the important themes seen in this chapter is how this place can change a person. It allows you to see the changes in Mary Anne as they happen.


Tragic loss has a very big impact on people. In the book, the soldiers lose some of their close friends in death. This book makes me think that the impact of this lose is something that never goes away. It changes people it has an effect on them for the rest of their life. People struggle a lot with the lose of close friends and family because they are a vital part of everyone's life. Its hard to picture their life without that person. The person is someone they need. Someone that is there for them. It is someone that they have been close to. Someone they share most of their life memories with. They feel without them that they are alone. It isn't something they really want to get over, they or we simply just want them back. From my experiences with loss, I don't know that there really is a best way to get over the tragic loss of a person. I got over the tragic loss because I had to think how they would want me to live or how I would want them to live if it were the other way around . Would they want me to lay in bed everyday for the rest of my life mourning them? Would they want me to cry everyday for them? Would they want me to miss them. They would want me to be happy and to move on, but they don't want me to forget them. They would want me to love them, remember them, and be happy.

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