Exploration 3 Logan Siebert

The story that has meant the most to me so far in this novel is the story of Mary Anne Bell. It fascinates me to see such development of a character, especially for one that was only in the plot for one chapter. Another interesting part about the development of Mary Anne is that she is defying all stereotypes of her gender at the time. Women during the Vietnam War were not going overseas to help out in the medical tents, let alone go out and become a green beret. Mary Anne showed so much growth over the chapter to the point where her own boyfriend didn't recognize her anymore. It is best exemplified on page 98, "Fossie took a half step forward and hesitated. It was as though he had trouble recognizing her. She wore a bush hat and filthy green fatigues; she carried the standard M-16 automatic assault rifle; her face was black with charcoal," (O'Brien 98).

The character that stands out the most to me so far is Dave Jensen. I find it interesting how he has his ways of dealing with grief and guilt. At first, Jensen got into a fistfight with Lee Strunk over a missing jackknife and beat him up so bad that he shattered Strunk's nose. After weeks of dealing with anxiety fearing that Strunk would retaliate, Jensen fired off a whole round of ammunition into the air screaming Strunk's name, it appears he was hallucinating. Shortly after that, Jensen can't deal with the  guilt, so he takes and pistol and beats himself repeatedly across the nose until he breaks his own nose.  I find it amusing how Jensen had no problem beating Strunk up over a stolen knife, but then couldn't deal with the anxiety of a potential retaliation from Strunk, that he went to such extreme lengths to break his own nose and retaliate on Strunk's behalf. It shows that sometimes we don't realize the strength of our actions until it's too late, then we find ourselves going to drastic lengths to fix things in a way we think makes it all better.