\input mla8.tex
\numberfirstpage
\clas{AP Lang}
\name{Holden} \last{Rohrer}
\prof{Jones}
\header
\title{``Sweetheart on the Song Tra Bong'' and
    {\it The Edge of Darkness} by Iron Maiden}
% Written in 19 very distracting minutes

Rat Kiley's story is about the specific instance of a soldier's
girlfriend coming to Vietnam during the war and becoming so enthralled
with the country that her old personality gets lost in combat. The more
general theme that Rat is hinting at is that the war changes people
irreversibly. In the case of Mary Anne, that is an extremely broadened
cultural point of view to the degree that she switches sides and begins
to live in the Vietnamese country side.

The song {\it The Edge of Darkness} describes, in homage to {\it
Apocalypse Now} with a similar theme, the war changing (often damaging)
one's sense of normalcy. The song says, at the end, ``Here I am, the
knife in my hand/ And now I understand.'' This describes the change in
norms that involvement in the war causes, and is related to Mary Anne's
or even Fossie's change from the war because killing becomes so
normalized in the war that it permanently changes one's point of view.

Other parts of the book refer into this part, with the ``main
character'' of the song wanting a ``mission'' ``in the jungle,'' and the
book paralleling that with the author cowardly giving in and becoming
one of the soldiers who participates willingly despite the bizarre
and unseemly nature of the war. They both point to ``your soul beginning
to bend'' because of the war, which O'Brien notes isn't always the case
but even when someone makes it through ``intact,'' the war has a
lifelong effect regardless.

\bye