How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
It was still dark when Jonesy woke me, shaking me by the shoulder. I opened my eyes. "What's up?"
"You believe in God?" he asked.
As I sat up I saw he was holding a flashlight in one hand and a small Bible in the other.
"Yeah, I do," I said. (3.17-20)
This is the first clue to Jonesy's religious background. He must have been feeling really anxious if he woke Birdy up to pray.
Quote #2
I felt awkward. It had been years since I last prayed, and I had never prayed with a friend. Jonesy held up his fist and I touched it to mine. (3.22)
So Birdy believes in God, but he hasn't prayed in years. He has beliefs, but isn't super religious.
Quote #3
A small, round Specialist came over and asked if Jonesy and I wanted to join a prayer group.
"I don't think so," I said. "Maybe…" I looked at Jonesy.
"No way," Jonesy said. "I'm a blues man. All we believe in is the blues and hard whiskey." (3.66-68)
Really, Jonesy? Do you really not believe in anything besides the blues? You literally woke Birdy up to pray the night before.
Quote #4
"Yo, Birdy, you know all this part of the world is in the Bible?"
"If you say so." I was on the ground with my gear under my head.
"You go to church back home?" he asked.
"Sometimes. You?"
"My father's a minister," he said. "But I don't go." (5.221-225)
If Jonesy's father was a minister, he was probably raised religious (enough to know facts about the Bible, at least). We wonder what happened to make him decide to stop going to church.
Quote #5
"I can only tell you what we want to do," Jamil said. "We want to live in peace and worship Allah in peace and walk down the streets in peace. Islam is a religion of peace, true Islam. This sounds simple but it's not. We have Allah in our hearts, but sometimes it's hard to hear the true voice when the stomach is making so much noise." (7.21)
Jamil's reminding the others that peace is a tenet of Islam. But these tenets become complicated when people have other concerns, like hunger or poverty.
Quote #6
I wasn't sure whether the man who lead us around was an imam or something, and didn't want to ask him. Nothing that he was telling us made any sense to me because he was speaking about people who had been in the area or were buried at the mosque centuries before and I couldn't keep up with the names or dates. (8.52)
Birdy knows the old mosque he's touring is sacred, but he doesn't know enough Islamic or world history to really appreciate the tour.
Quote #7
"I don't play so well, but I am Islam, so I win." He reached over and touched each of his friends on the chest. "Islam, Islam, Islam."
"And we aren't Islam so we don't win?" I asked.
Omar touched each of us. "Infidel, infidel, infidel, infidel, infidel, infidel…"
He had to get up and walk around the table to get to me and Pendleton, and he did. (12.51-54)
Omar's being a little intense. He got up to walk around the table just to call every American an infidel. There might be a bit of resentment or anger showing through.
Quote #8
"What was that last bit of conversation?" Coles asked. "When the other guy spoke to you?"
"He wanted to know who my people were, and if they knew I worked for nonbelievers." (14.379-380)
Poor Fadel could get in trouble just for working for people of a different religion, even if he's devoutly religious himself.
Quote #9
"Does anyone know what religion the young man was?" the chaplain asked.
"He was a blues man," Marla answered.
"And an American," Miller added. "A damn good American."
The questions stopped. The service went on. (15.23-26)
Miller was right. It shouldn't matter what Jonesy's religion was. What mattered was that he sacrificed himself in wartime.
Quote #10
Uncle Richie, I'm glad I won't mail this letter to you. Because the hardest thing to say is that I don't know if God and I would recognize each other. Why would He let such crap go on like this? How come there's so much pain in the world if He has anything to say about it? What kind of a God is this? (15.37)
Birdy is grappling with something that fighters and civilians in wars throughout history have wondered: how could God let terrible things happen? It's not an easy question to answer.