How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I seen a 240 take a guy's leg off from a hundred yards," a big-headed corporal said. "The whole leg came off and the sucker was just laying there on the ground, looking at his leg as he died." I felt a little sick. (2.37-38)
Birdy's about to go to war, and the anxiety of what he's getting into is hitting him hard. This sunny little anecdote isn't helping.
Quote #2
It all looked so much better in the training films, when the figures were just silhouettes flickering across a screen. When it was all just a video game. But up close, the smell of blood was connected with real people. I knew that many of them wouldn't make it. They would be dead before the night came, or surely by the next morning. (5.100)
Birdy's training might have prepared him a little, but no amount of screens could have prepared him for the reality of war—being up close and personal with the dying.
Quote #3
"Mess with my leg again and I'll shoot you through the top of your head," she answered. "Yo Jonesy, is Marla weird or what?" I asked. "Hey man, we all weird," Jonesy said. "Or do you always do drive-bys in the name of democracy?" (5.169-171)
Jonesy likes to compare situations they face in war to examples from his life in the U.S. Comparing their shooting to drive-bys is, sadly, a good analogy.
Quote #4
"They're Shiites, and that's good, but apparently the air force sent over some A-10s on a Close Air Support mission and they took out a school. Killed some civilians. A few children. This is a war and collateral damage happens. That's a fact of war and a reflection of what is known as the "fog of war." Nothing happens perfectly. Bullets fly. Bombs fall. People stand up at the wrong time." (6.36)
Sessions, who is giving this talk, seems awfully blasé about the fact that the air force killed Iraqi children. She isn't wrong about how collateral damage is a part of warfare, though.
Quote #5
The whole thing was over in a heartbeat. The marine patrol had been coming down the street, the IED had exploded, and now people were dead. There was no confrontation, no blurred figures flying across the busy street, no one to chase down for revenge, no one to be mad at. (8.71)
Birdy's shocked description is a fact of the Iraq War in particular. The biggest threat to Americans are IEDs—with no one around them to pin the blame on. Totally different than a war movie.
Quote #6
What was happening, I thought, was that the humanity we were supposed to be showing the Iraqis was wearing thin. I didn't know who my enemy was over here, what rock he might pop out from, from which window he might shoot. I didn't know which of the figures in robes down to their ankles were praying for peace and which were planting bombs on the side of the road. (9.60)
Birdy's in the Civil Affairs unit, meaning he's there to get the Iraqis to trust American soldiers. But it's hard for him to be anything but suspicious when he doesn't know who the enemy is.
Quote #7
We got clearance the morning of the game and were rolling toward Al-Uhaimir by 1000 hours. Captain Miller and Jerry rode with Second Squad. We took along three extra balls for the kids and some notebooks and pencils. For the first time in a long, long time I felt really human. I hadn't been down or anything, just tired all the time. (12.26)
Being tired all the time is a sign of depression, so it's possible that Birdy isn't being completely honest with himself when he says he hasn't been down.
Quote #8
Marla put it best.
"You go out and you see people shopping," she said. "Women buying onions and bread or people having coffee. Then down the street somebody gets blown up. Jesus, it's weird."
It was weird—weird and unnerving. Somebody buying onions, somebody getting their fingers blown off, somebody dying. (13.2-4)
Here's another description of what the Iraq War is like. There are no trenches for military only—bombings are instead mixed in with daily life.
Quote #9
I didn't know if we were winning here in Iraq or not. If we just talked about dead people, about bodies lying in the streets, then we were winning easy. But somehow it wasn't about who was doing the most killing. (13.34)
There's no easy definition for how to win this war. The troops already surrendered, so it isn't about that, or body count. That's what makes the Iraq War so complicated.
Quote #10
"We have all of them," Roberts said, glancing toward Miller. "They were kidnapped as a favor to us."
"So it's true, you can't be trusted?" Miller asked.
"After the war we can sit down and have a drink some place," Roberts said. "We get a good enough buzz on, we'll talk about the philosophy of war. Until then we'll do what we have to do to keep our people alive." (14.328-330)
Roberts is of the philosophy that you do what you have to in a war. Maybe his troops were threatened—we'll never know. But kidnapping children does seem pretty villainous.