The Yellow Birds

摘要

If you wanted to learn about the psychological problems soldiers have on returning from war, where would you look? You could usefully start by reading the report of a 15-year project at the King's Centre for Military Research (2010), where you would find detailed statistics on the extent and severity of PTSD, depression and other psychiatric problems found in those returning from the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. If you wanted a longer historical perspective you might read Ben Shephard's excellent 2002 book, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists, 1914-1994. If you wanted something more direct and personal, you could read Captain Kevin Ivison's 2010 account of being a bomb disposal expert in Iraq. Or perhaps you might read the recent, highly acclaimed novel, The Yellow Birds (Sceptre, 2012), in which Kevin Powers, a combat veteran turned novelist, portrays the psychological breakdown of three young American soldiers deployed to Iraq. Hold on though. A novel? Surely, you may ask, no one wanting seriously to study the psychological problems of soldiers should read a novel? I think they should, and I will explain why.