"You just don't know. You Hide in this little fortress, behind wire and sandbags, and you don't know what its all about. Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country- the dirt, the death- I just want to eat it and have it there inside me. That's how I feel. It's like... this appetite. I get scared sometimes- a lot of times- but its not bad. You know? 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 that anywhere else. "

- Mary Anne Bell, The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong
-The Things They Carried, Tim O' Brien