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Yellow Birds- Times Comparison
“The Marines’ job was to help the Iraqis do what they could not do alone”
proclaimed American General Sattler to his troops in a pre battle pep talk (Oppel. pg5).
America originally entered the Iraq war with the mission of helping the peoples of Iraq
take power from radical insurgencies and return it to the people. Initially lasting eight
years from 2003 to 2011, the realities Iraq war has been well documented and reported on
in the media with different approaches. One approach is through fiction novels that put
the reader in the “soldiers boots” another being non fiction journalistic style
documentation by sources such as the NY Times.
In the Ney York Times article titled “G.I’s Open Attack to Take the city of Falluja
located across from the Euphrates River From Iraq Rebels” the American led invasion of
the insurgent controlled city of Falluja is discussed. The article begins with predictions of
the battle saying it was “likely to be a brutal, block- by-block battle to take control of the
city”(Oppel. pg2). The article continues to describe scenes of the battle in Falluja,
capturing the battles true chaotic nature describing the scene as “ a huge fire burned midst
of the sky”. This article while similar to many battle scenes in The Yellow Birds has a
striking resemblance does not capture the experience as well as a novel can. Just like on
page 117 of pillow birds the battle is described as chaotic and tragic in yellowbirds they
compare the sky to photographer’s flash while the Times compares it to a Fire .A
