Society's Beliefs Revealed in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong On a damp, humid afternoon in 1961, the first U.S. helicopter landed in Vietnam dispensing boys immature on soggy swamps. Some would one day return to the same helicopter, wrapped in a poncho to be taken to the morgue, lying tied to a gurney about to report to the hospital, or standing with their heads held high because they were about to return. to their lands of origin. Tim O'Brien, one of the returning soldiers, put together short stories relating to the war and how he saw it and American society. When reading O'Brien's stories, it would be more effective if the reader applied the New Historicist Approach by taking into consideration his or her beliefs, habits of thought, and prejudices about the concepts and those of American society during the 1960s. Later, the true image of women in combat, the mockery of misleading war stories and the returning soldier's feelings of guilt will be revealed. Women of the 1960s usually took on the role of a mother to her children, an innocent child to her parents, and a delicate asset to men. In “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” O’Brien describes Mary Anne Bell, a Greenie woman in the making, as: “This cute blonde, just a little girl, just out of high school…she wears white culottes and this sexy pink sweater " (90). Through the text it is easy to discover the direct feelings of women. The words O'Brien uses to describe Mary Anne make it seem like she is too delicate and precious to be in a place like Vietnam during the war. This not only expresses in certain terms how O'Brien feels about women in war, but can also be linked to the thoughts of A...... half of the paper ...... who felt remorse for their behaviors; several protests were underway in the United States at the same time against the killing of innocent people by American soldiers. Overall, “The Man I Killed” can also be linked historically to the many protests that were held across the country due to the deaths of innocent people in Vietnam. O'Brien allows his text to represent the thoughts of his opinions as well as the American view of the guilt of soldiers, of women in combat, and of his disgust for those who falsely create war stories. If these connections are not evident, it becomes easier once the historicist approach is applied because it allows us to decipher the thoughts of a particular society in that period. This is because it is almost as if the author immersed himself in the feelings of that time to express how society should function.