21 April 2009 PURPLE HEART by Patricia McCormick, HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, September 2009, 198p., ISBN: 978-0-06-173090-0

"Matt thought about his squad, about Justin, about Wolf and Figueroa, about their new squad leader, Sergeant McNally. The first thought that came to mind wasn't a firefight or a door-to-door search.

"It was the time Wolf's mom sent him a bunch of cans of Silly String. The whole squad ran around the barracks, hiding and ambushing one another, spraying neon green Silly String everywhere, imitating the ack-ack sound of an M16 each time their fired. They were playing war, Matt remembered thinking, while a real one was raging outside.

"As he watched Wolf squirt Silly String down the back of Figueroa's shirt, he remembered thinking, This is what war is about. It wasn't about fighting the enemy. It wasn't about politics or oil or even about terrorists. It was about your buddies; it was about fighting for the guy next to you. And knowing he was fighting for you."

I dream of a world in which ambushes are regularly conducted with Silly String. I applaud my President for willingly shaking hands with foreign leaders who have been critical -- as I have been -- of American foreign policy as practiced by George W. Bush. I want our disagreements with Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and everywhere else to be solved with words, not with our armed eighteen-year-olds and their armed eighteen-year-olds. Not with my own precious, soon-to-graduate eighteen-year-old.

I hope we continue to rid our government of those responsible for using billions of our tax dollars to send hundreds of thousands of teenage Americans into harm's way in an unnecessary war in Iraq.

Sorry, but stories about the Iraq War get me really upset. I find it hard to say, Hey, this is a great book! It's about the Iraq War!...even when it is a great book...which this one is.

For me, the reality check in Patricia McCormick's PURPLE HEART is when narrator Private Matt Duffy gets a letter from his girlfriend Caroline, who is complaining about her high school biology teacher and an imminent pop quiz. As they'd say back when I was their age (during a different war), Can you dig it? We're talking about a young soldier who was sitting in Homeroom just last year, waiting to meet up between classes with his sweetie at her locker; a young man who is now sitting in a hospital in the Green Zone with a Traumatic Brain Injury that is sure to color the rest of his life, a life that might not be all that long given that the medical staff are under orders to get him and those like him back to their units for more action ASAP.

"'Sir? This thing I have -- TBI. How do I know when I'm better?'

"Kwong hung the clipboard at the foot of the bed and pulled a tiny penlight from his pocket. 'There's no clear scientific way, if that's what you mean.' He came around to the head of the bed and shined the light in Matt's eye. 'It's more the absence of indicators -- you understand?'

"Matt nodded. But he wasn't sure he really did grasp what the doctor was saying.

"'You still having language-retrieval problems?' Kwong said.

"'Some.'

"'Mood swings?' Kwong's voice came from over Matt's shoulder as he shined his light in Matt's ears.

"Matt blinked. 'Sort of.'

"'How about your cognitive functioning? Are you able to absorb new information?' Kwong had put on his stethoscope and was listening to Matt's heart. If Matt answered, what would it sound like through the stethoscope? Would his voice rumble in Kwong's ears? Or would it sound like a fly buzzing just out of range?

"'How about focus?' Kwong asked, his stethoscope now on Matt's back. 'Are you having trouble concentrating?'

"Matt tried to think. He couldn't even remember what Kwong's last question was."

It was a while back that 60 Minutes broadcast a piece on what the true price of the Iraq War will be. It was a report about the long-term future costs of caring for young people like Matt Duffy who serve their country and come back with missing pieces or scrambled brains.

Sitting around the hospital, gauging his own recuperation by the number of steps from his bed that he can manage, Matt is trying hard to remember what exactly happened during the pursuit that led to his being injured. Somehow, he and Justin got split off from their squad and ended up in a narrow alley filled with rubble, coils of razor wire, an overturned vehicle, and a scavenging dog. It is there that Matt suffered a close encounter with a rocket-propelled grenade. It is also there that the young Iraqi boy Matt knows was shot and killed. Amidst the chaos, for as much as Matt can recall, he might well have been the child's killer.

From what truths might his damaged brain be protecting him?

PURPLE HEART really is a great book that makes me wish for Silly String offensives and for our doing a far better job of teaching "Use Your Words."

Richie Partington, MLIS

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