Who were the greenies and what were they like?

The Greenies
are an elite force of Army soldiers known as the Green Berets.  They are a special forces group
of men known for their abilities to engage the enemy in guerrilla warfare and to search out and
destroy the enemy in ambushes.  In , we see a group of Green Berets in the
story, .  Their hootch or hut is separate from the other soldiers in this story, and they
are known for going out alone on patrols. also mentions that they are someone you dont want to
mess with. 

In the story, a medic by the name of Mark Fossie is able to fly
his girlfriend, Mary Ann, to Vietnam for a visit.  She is immediately enthralled with the war
and countryside of Vietnam.  Mary Ann eventually goes on a patrol with the Greenies that changes
her life forever.  In the story, the Greenies collect body parts of their kills.  Their hootch
is full of animal parts, skulls, and human bones.  Their hootch reeks like an animals den, and
they play strange music that sounds like animals screaming and howling.  These men have gone
insane fighting in this war. 

When Fossie confronts Mary Ann about her
behavior, he finds her in the Greenies hootch wearing a necklace of human tongues made up from
her kills.  During the telling of this story, Rat Kiley says, She wanted more, she wanted to
penetrate deeper into the mystery of herself, and after a time, the wanting became needing,
which turned to craving.

This is a very interesting chapter because of the
animalistic characteristics OBrien uses to describe the men and their hootch.  He symbolic
suggests that the actions of Mary Ann and the men are cannibalistic to show just how deeply
anyone can be driven insane by war.  Mary Ann falls in love with the war and the thrill of the
ambush, and at the end of the story, she disappears into the jungles never to be seen again. 
Mary Ann loses her innocence in Vietnam and is symbolic of how all people will be changed by
war.