Mary Anne Bell
When Marie Anne first arrives to Vietnam she is wearing a pink sweater that shows her innocence. She is very feminine and attractive. Her clothes say she just finished high school but her personality and curiousity on the other hand show something different.
After Mary Anne decides to join the Green Berets she goes out in ambush dressed in green fatigues. This is when she starts getting deeper into Vietnam and starts becoming more and more obssesed with the war.
Mary Anne learns how to use an M-16 rifle and sets out to be part of the Greenies. She is part of an ambush and shows up one morning with filthy fatigues and 6 other men by her side and the M-16 guarded safely by her arm.
Mary Anne starts becoming one with the land. She becomes obssesed with the mysterious of the land, its people, the war, she wants to be part of it all. The jungle entrances her and she falls in love with it.
This is a picture of the Song Tra Bong River. Here is where Mary anne decides to take a swim and wades into the water. The chapter in which she is in The Things They Carried is also called Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong
In the end, Mary Anne's obsession with the jungle, the land, and the war gets the best of her and she is absorbed into Vietnam. She becomes crazy and abandons the Greenies to explore the land by herself and soon enough she is no longer Mary Anne Bell, she is Vietnam.