superstition

Dobbins and his girlfriends pantyhouse represents a faith that the soldiers believed in. The religion that they all followed, that sometype of faith that may help them through the war. At first Dobbins says that the stockings remind him of home, the smell and feel but then his girlfriend breaks up with him and he still keeps the stockings because there was still a feeling of protection over evil. Dobbins survives the war even after tripping a land mine, but maybe things like stockings and superstition gave the soldiers something to live for, something to believe might be keeping them safe.

Mary Anne

The story about Mary Anne and Mark Fossy is extremly powerful in the same way I think the story about the patrol in the mountains is. It contains mystery and danger, but it is the kind that makes you want more, that you become addicted to. It is even described as a drug by O'Brien. I don't understand what it is in this young girl that falls in love with the danger of vietnam though. The men understand its horrors but Mary Anne says it's "Not bad". I believe it may be her opposite self, the person that is inside her that was never able to come out being a highschool cheerleader in a rural town. War must bring out sides of people that aren't present anywhere else. The stress and terror are beyond anything we can know as civilians and these factors brought out a person hidden deep inside Mary Anne.

Opera in the Mountains

This story is incredibly fascinating, in a horrifying way. With wars like vietnam, and any situation of extreme terror a certain mystery is felt about the situation, something beyond what humans normally feel and see. The mountan story about the troops who were sent there to record sound and report anything strange gives off this feeling, being far far away from home, in a strange jungle of death, these young men go crazy hearing an opera, and band playing right above them in the mountains. This shows what war does to people, it drives them away from reason and what they think is real and true. It brings them to the edge of the human mind and what it can contain. To me that is what this story conveys, the incredible capacity of fear and stress that the mind can contain.

Baby water buffalo

This scene was shocking, very in fact. It is a metaphor for Rat Kiley and his young self, and the unbelievable pain he is put through. Not just one shot to the head, or something to concentrate on, to heal, his wounds are a mess. The young water buffalo is like Rat because they are young, so many possibilities for a future but it is taken from them by incredible pain. The war has ruined Rat from what he could have been. He is physically, emotionally, and mentally broken. To display this he has to destroy the Buffalo beyond repair. Not just kill him which would have been simple and to the point, Rat's pain is neither of these, his hurt is complex and it will linger for years and years.

टेस्टिंग

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