O’Brien recalls a fellow soldier, Henry Dobbins, and his habit of wrapping his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck as a sort of “talisman,” or lucky charm. O’Brien remembers Dobbins as a simple man with good intentions. When caught in a fight in the middle of an open field, Dobbins wrapped the pantyhose around his face and made it through the fight unscathed. The pantyhose, he believed, kept him safe, and he continued his eccentric practice even after his girlfriend broke up with him because he said the magic did not go away.
