In Yusef Komunyakaa's "Camouflaging the Chimera", the significance of the tiger suit is the effort that American soldiers did to look like animals, and they are depicted this way in the poem. The soldiers in Vietnam made a tremendous effort to blend with their surroundings, just as animals do to avoid being attacked by other animals, "We tied branches to our helmets. We painted our faces and rifles with mud from a riverbank,...".