It made love and gave birth and spread through fire. While we ate, the war fasted, fed by its own deprivation. When we pressed onward through exhaustion, its eyes were white and open in the dark. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. The story centers around two young men: 21-year-old Bartle, the narrator, and 18-year-old Murphy, who are sent to fight in Iraq in 2004.īartle is charged by Murphy's mother to look after her son and keep him alive, a promise Bartle soon realizes he never should have made.īook Excerpt: 'The Yellow Birds' By: Kevin Powers Now he's published his debut novel "The Yellow Birds" which Tom Wolfe has called "The 'All Quiet on the Western Front' of America's Arab Wars." When he was 23, he served as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Ifar Iraq. Kevin Powers enlisted in the army at the age of 17. Facebook Email This article is more than 10 years old.
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