In “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” O’Brien narrates the story of a young woman who is brought to a remote base in Vietnam by her boyfriend. Mary Anne belle becomes fascinated with the landscape and the war and progresses to accompanying the green berets who share the compound on their nighttime ambushes. Eventually, Mary Anne leaves the compound entirely to exist in the jungle by herself. Before the reader is informed of her fate, however, there is a scene in which her boyfriend, Mark fossie, demands and explanation for her behavior. While she does eventually attempt to explain her experience to him she makes it clear that there is no way language can accurately describe to him what she has experienced. The difficult for mark fossie story is that he is demanding an explanation of an experience he could never understand.as he approaches the Green Beret hutch where Mary Anne is staying, he hears strange music and a woman’s voice he is convinced in hers. O’Brien writes of the music,” it had a chaotic, almost unmusical sound, without rhythm or form or progression, like the noise of nature a woman’s voice was half singing, half chanting, but the lyrics seemed to be in a foreign tongue” (108). Although fossie recognizes her voice he is unable to interpret the language she is singing. The connection between Mary Anne and nature is unmistakable as her new language moves close to what David Abram would call part of a more perceptual experience. Abram writes,” whenever we attempt to explain this world conceptually, we seem to forget our active participation in it” (41). Mary Anne is working towards becoming permanently active in her world and thus her language reflects a focus that relies less on conceptualization and more on active participation with nature. In this shift in perspective that makes it impossible for Mary Anne to communicate to fossie even while she is still able to use his language. After his point, howev