The Yellow Birds - A Gleaming Anti-war Novel

Kevin Powers served with the U.S. in Irag 2004-2005.  THE YELLOW BIRDS is Power's 1st novel & is a Nat'l Book Award Finalist.  I rank this Iraq war novel alongside the WWI novel ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT & the Vietnam novel THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.  All are powerful & poignant novels that speak of the attrocities of war; both on the battlefield and the homefront for returning vets.  In THE YELLOW BIRDS, John Bartle & Daniel Murphy, enlist in the army as young men.  They meet & befriend each other while in bootcamp, under the command of Sgt. Sterling.  Their friendship between under Sterling's war weary knowledge, emphasize the harsh realities of war.  Power's lyrical tale is not linear in structure which adds an element of intrigue.  Bartle is the narrator of this heartbreaking saga.  He looks back at his life as a naive youth, on the battlefronts, and at his own post war purgatory. "There isn't any making up for killing women or even watching women get killed, or for that matter killing men and shooting them in the back. There was acid seeping down into your soul and then your soul is gone."  THE YELLOW BIRDS is sure to be a classic literary achievement addressing the Hell of war.  We continuously fail to heed the wisdom of our founding father, "If tyranny & oppresion come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." J. Adams