Kevin Powers: "The Yellow Birds"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-09-25/kevin-powers-yellow-birds
Kevin Powers, from a town in Virginia, joined the army when he was just 17 years old. Six years later, he was in Iraq, deployed in Mosul and Ta Lafar at a time of fierce fighting. He draws on that experiences in a novel titled “The Yellow Birds.” It is the story of Private John Bartle and Private Daniel Murphy, two small town boys bound by a rash promise Bartle made to Murphy’s mom. But they are unprepared for the battles they face. Tom Wolfe says this novel is “the ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ of America’s Arab Wars.” Kevin Powers joins guest host Tom Gjelten of NPR to discuss the emotional gravity of war and the dangers that do not end when soldiers get home.
Guests
Kevin Powers
served in the U.S. Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq.
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Read An Excerpt
Excerpted from the book THE YELLOW BIRDS by Kevin Powers. Copyright © 2012 by Kevin Powers. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company.
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Have talked with many returning soldiers from iraq and Afghanistan at several Veteran Administration facilities and watched the Winter Solder congressional hearings. Many returning soldiers talk about the disconnect between what Americans know about what has and is going on on those battlefields. How do you deal with this disconnect in "Yellow Birds"
My son-in-law is an Irag and Afghanistan vet also. It's interesting that now these vets who have had a few years time to digest and sort through their emotions and experiences are now coming coming out with their stories. I just read through a collection of short stories a friend referred me to "Beaten Zone" by A. McLean Swanson which dealt with this issue. Soldiers (former) and their families often have a hard time recognizing the inner struggles these young men face coming back from such a life-altering experience.
Kevn earlier you mentioned soldiers feeling "regret, fear, anger, confusion" You don't mention guilt. How do the characters in your novel deal with guilt? And how do your characters deal with the fact that the Bush administration sent them into Iraq based on a "pack of lies"
It is the early 1970's and my brother has returned from Vietnam. I have waited for his return for two years, missing his wide, bright smile, his blue eyes, his corny jokes.
We go for sandwiches and take them outside to eat. The day is sunny and full of promise. It's the first time I have him to myself in years and I am excited to hear of his adventures. He is much bigger than me and I look up to him, able to see only his profile as he speaks. What follows is a stream of obscenities I hadn't known were possible.
Tales of corpses being mutilated and hung from trees as warnings; both the Vietcong and the Americans do this. Strings of ears worn as trophies by other American soldiers. The stories come, one after another, told in a voice that is almost blase, monotonous.
When he is done he gives me a large bullet to hang around my neck as a memento. Something is deeply wrong. Something I am incapable of naming.
I am 12 years old and my childhood is over.
This story is not just about me or my brother. Forty years later I have watched him struggle with marriages, addiction and attempts to raise a family. I watch my nieces and nephews struggle with this invisible, unspoken legacy that remains, engulfing them in the stench of a dead thing hidden in the rafters.
This thing called war continues to claim casualties decades later, its freaky nuances difficult to identify but as real as the tender flesh of a human ear dangling from the grizzled remnants of a soldier's last ties to his own humanity.
Maria chills as I am reading your account with your brother. Grew up protesting the Vietnam war based on what we knew. Many of us have friends who served in Vietnam and struggle like your brother. Based on lies and manipulation of young minds. Millions across the U.S. protested, lobbied, petitioned our Reps asking them to not support the invasion of Iraq in the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003. Hillary Clinton, Kerry, Biden etc etc voted for the Iraq war resolution. Many of us knew what the Bush administration was saying was a "pack of lies" Many people like former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Dr. Zbig, Former President Carter, many former CIA analyst were questioning the validity of the intelligence. But still we did not stop that immoral and illegal invasion of Iraq. Young men and women were sent into that country based on those lies. Their lives are changed forever mostly in terribly destructive ways. Hundreds of thousands will suffer for the rest of their lives based on what Cheney, Bush, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rice etc did to them. At times like this is when I hope and pray there is a hell because if there is the devil is building a new wing for the Bush administration, Not one person held accountable for that pack of lies
Stick by your brother with healthy boundaries. Make sure you get counseling for yourself and encourage him to do the same. Keep pushing for accountability
Still getting chills. Thank you for sharing