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"You just don't know," she said. "You hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don't know… Sometimes I want to eat this place. […] That's how I feel. It's like this appetite. I get scared sometimes—lots of times—but it's not bad. You know? I feel close to myself. When I'm out at night, I feel close to my own body, I can feel my blood moving, my skin and fingernails, everything, it's like I'm full of electricity and I'm glowing in the dark—I'm on fire almost—I'm burning away into nothing—but it doesn't matter because I know exactly who I am. You can't feel like that anywhere else." (Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong.150)
Mary Anne is inexorably, or unavoidably, drawn to the Other—the Other in this case not being the Vietnamese, but the Vietnam War itself. She's not totally a part of it yet (that comes later) but she's sure fascinated by it. She shows the danger of throwing away all separation between herself and the Other. She's at the point where she wants to become the Other.