Purple Heart

“'Here in Iraq, the things you see, sometimes you wonder about God,' Father Brennan said. He put his cap back on his head and walked toward the next bed. 'But there’s always baseball.'”

Early on in the novel, the author indicates that even for a priest, the violence of Iraq makes him “wonder about God.”The world of the novel is not one where religion will supply easy answers. Father Brennan chooses to find support not from religion, but from baseball, the traditional American pastime. Throughout the novel, baseball reappears as a reminder of an idealized American life, far from the wartime reality of the characters.

"Directly below his window was a dusty lot where a bunch of Iraqi kids were dancing. A gangly little boy stood in the center of the group, lip-synching and wagging his hands in a spot-on imitation of a rapper.

'I’ll take you to the candy shop…' the kid pretended to sing. 'I’ll let you lick the lollipop.'

It was unreal, seeing this skinny, barefoot kid doing a hand glide, and Matt thought about what Justin had said once when they were in the street handing out candy to the scrum of little kids who followed them everywhere: 'We’re bringing these people America!'”

This quote introduces the strange, “unreal” way American culture has infiltrated Iraq, as Iraqi children are quoting suggestive rap lyrics they don’t truly understand. The U.S. troops are supposedly helping Iraqis, yet instead of offering these “skinny, barefoot” children real assistance, the soldiers are handing out candy and spreading American pop culture.

"Later that day, the chaplain stopped by and said Mass. It was outside, in the town square, and Matt noticed the same kid standing there, watching as the soldiers went up to receive Communion. Then the boy got in line—he copied the way people folded their hands and bowed their heads—and he stuck his tongue out. The priest didn’t bat an eye. And the boy chewed the tiny wafer like he couldn’t get it down fast enough. A few minutes later he was back in line, for seconds."

Because of Matt’s own background as an altar boy, he’s particularly struck by the image of Ali—whom he doesn’t know by name at this point—taking Communion. Ali taking Communion so that he can eat the wafer shows his clever, mischievous nature—it’s an idea most of the Iraqi children wouldn’t consider—as well as his extreme physical hunger. This quote also hints at the role Catholic rituals will play throughout the novel, as Matt looks for solace and redemption in confession after Ali’s death.

"That night the squad had had to sleep on the floor of an Iraqi home, huddled together to stay warm. Matt woke up in the middle of the night to find Justin covering him with a thin blanket he must have found somewhere in the house. Then Justin lay down next to him, cradling his rifle in his arms, and closed his eyes. They never said a word about what had happened that day, but after that they had become inseparable."

This quote illustrates the close relationship between Matt and Justin, with Justin caring for Matt in an almost maternal way after Matt stopped Justin from committing an irrational act of violence. Amid the dangers of wartime, small moments of comfort and connection like the one Justin and Matt share here become particularly valuable. Yet while Matt and Justin’s bond seems strong—as Matt says, they’re “inseparable”—the pressure of the traumatic experience they’ve shared will drive a wedge between the two as the story continues.

"There were lots of strays in Baghdad, cats and dogs. His squad had adopted a tiny gray kitten they’d found nosing through the garbage during their first week in country. Itchy, they named him. The first time a mortar hit the compound, the soldiers had practically jumped out of their socks. Itchy didn’t even blink. Only a few weeks old, he was already a veteran."

Itchy, a tiny, innocent kitten who’s immune to the sounds of guns and bombs, illustrates just how ordinary war and violence have become in Iraq. Matt’s observation that “there were lot of strays in Baghdad” also brings to mind a different kind of stray—the many needy children who follow the troops, begging for food. One of these human strays, Ali, is “adopted” by Matt and the squad the same way Itchy is—Matt even refers to both Itchy and Ali as “our mascot” (70). Sheltering Itchy is relatively simple, but in Ali’s case, Matt finds that caring for a stray can have disastrous results.

"He slipped the picture out of the Ziploc bag and held it gingerly by the tips of his fingers. At night, before they went out on house-to-house searches, he’d take the picture out and spend the last few minutes before they left looking at Caroline twirling her hair, pretending he was in the bleachers watching her. He could practically feel the snap in the fall air, hear the shrill call of the referee’s whistle, feel the lump in his jacket pocket where he’d hidden a can of Budweiser.

But now she seemed more like someone in one of those celebrity magazines. Her face was familiar—the way Jennifer Aniston or Britney Spears was familiar—in the way that makes you feel like you know the person, even though all you really know is their picture."

This quote illustrates how the experience of war distances soldiers from their loved ones at home. After a traumatic act of violence, Matt can no longer connect to his girlfriend on a visceral, immediate level; he can no longer imagine himself back in the U.S. with her, where the “snap in the fall air” provides a strong contrast to Iraq’s blistering temperatures. Now, Matt thinks of Caroline like a celebrity—someone he feels like he knows, when he really doesn’t. At moments like these, the normal American life Matt once shared with Caroline seems unimaginably far away.

"It was a child’s drawing of a battle. The guns—M16s and M4s—were precisely drawn, even though they were nearly as big as the soldiers. A Black Hawk UH-60 hovered overhead—complete with Hellfire antitank missiles mounted on the sides. Its guns spit out a shower of bullets—drawn as a hundred tiny pencil has marks arching across on the paper. At the bottom it was signed in wobbly English letters: Ali."

This quote juxtaposes Ali’s innocence—his drawing features a child’s exaggerated, inaccurate sense of proportions, along with a “wobbly” signature—with his adult like knowledge of the intricacies of machine guns and Army helicopters. Children draw what they’re familiar with, and Ali’s life has clearly been shaped by war and violence.

"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 they 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 all 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."

Matt’s bond with his squad mates motivates him to stay strong through the challenges of war. Matt’s loyalty to his fellow soldiers gives purpose and meaning to what might otherwise be a senseless conflict, a meaning that abstract concepts like politics and terrorism can’t provide. In addition, this quote illustrates how youthful Matt and his fellow soldiers are. They play with Silly String like kids because they are kids, many of them fresh out of high school. Yet at the same time, “playing war” is only a temporary escape from the real one they must face outside.

"The normalness of her letters—the bland, ordinary details of high school life—used to make him feel good, like things were the same at home even if he was gone. He’d told himself that that was what he was fighting for, so Caroline and his mom and Lizzy could go to the mall or watch that show they liked, Gossip Girl, and do whatever they did and not have to worry.

But now it bugged him that she was suddenly like some expert on the war, telling him to clean his gun and asking if he wanted single-serving packs of tuna. And she’d signed her letter “love ya.” That was what she and her girlfriends said when they hung up on their cell phones—or what you say to your mom when you leave the house. What was that supposed to mean?"

This quote illustrates Matt’s strong sense of duty and responsibility for others, as he fights to keep his family and girlfriend happy and safe. However, Matt’s brain injury and traumatic experience have changed him: now he is easily irritated and bothered by his girlfriend’s flippant attitude. Matt no longer obtains the same sense of comfort and purpose from Caroline’s letters; the violence he’s experienced leaves him so far removed from ordinary American life, he can’t relate to it at all.

"A moment later, he heard the percussive thump of hip-hop coming from a boom box. They rounded a corner and he found himself inside a vast room of some kind, where soldiers were painting a mural of the Twin Towers on the wall. One soldier was holding a bag of Doritos as he worked.

The room, which was practically as big as a football field, had marble floors, marble walls, a balcony around the top, and a gigantic crystal chandelier. In the middle of the floor were rows of metal-frame canvas cots, each one topped with mosquito netting; around the edge of the room were a dozen Porta Potties. The whole place looked like some kind of weird, palatial summer camp."

Here, Matt is walking through Saddam’s former palace, now occupied by U.S. troops. The changes American soldiers have made to the palace mirror the ways they’ve altered Iraqi society as a whole. The U.S. is imposing its own culture and values over Iraqi ones with hip-hip music, junk food, and a mural of the Twin Towers. The soldiers have usurped the space, installing cots and even Porta Potties, to an almost absurd effect, creating a “palatial summer camp.” This same sense of absurdity appears in the American takeover of Iraq as a whole—for instance, soldiers brought over drainage pipes to rebuild the country, but those pipes now provide homes for Iraqi orphans like Ali.

“'When something is too painful to process,' she said gently, 'your mind has a way of burying it.'

Neither of them could say what “it” was. Shooting a child. Aiming, pulling the trigger, and killing a little boy."

Here, Meaghan Finnerty suggests that Matt may be suppressing the memory of killing Ali as a form of self-protection. While Matt later learns he didn’t kill Ali, Meaghan’s words still serve as a powerful reminder of the difficult acts soldiers must perform during war. Not just Matt, but many soldiers do things so awful their minds literally block them out. This is a psychological defense mechanism that can cause significant distress for soldiers as they grapple with the emotional aftereffects of events they can’t even remember.

"Confessions in Iraq were different, an impromptu talk with a battlefield chaplain or, more often, a late-night conversation with a buddy. But those conversations, where the inky black Iraqi night was lit by the embers of a pair of cigarettes, were somehow more sacred than anything he’d ever experienced in a church back home.

Secrets were confessed, not in the formal words prescribed by the Catholic Church but in combat slang: I dropped a guy today. I lit up a house. Or just I did some sick shit today."

In this quote, the author again illustrates the strength of the bonds between soldiers, as by sharing secrets, soldiers process and accept events too difficult to deal with on their own. Matt, a dedicated Catholic, has discovered a different kind of spiritual experience—one full of honesty, immediacy, and connection, and even more “sacred” than the formulaic rituals of the church.

"But Wolf was the one who surprised Matt the most. 'I hate it, you know. I hate this shit. I hate how we came over here to help these people and instead we’re killing them. But you know what else? I also sorta love it, man. When you’re out there, with your M16 and your night-vision goggles, you feel like you’re ten feet tall and bulletproof. You are Superman. It’s this primal thing. I love it. And I hate it.'”

Here Wolf articulates one of the central conflicts of the novel: on an individual level, Matt hopes to help Iraqis like Ali, but his actions end up leading to Ali’s death. On a broader level, the U.S. troops are supposed to aid Iraqi citizens, but in many cases, they’re harming or even killing them instead. This quote also acknowledges another side to war and violence: while most of the novel emphasizes the negative effects of war, here Wolf hints at the sense of power and freedom fighting can bring.

"Matt missed them, even Charlene, but he especially missed the guys. Their stupid “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” jokes. Their insults. He even missed the way the guys sat around burping and scratching their balls and just being gross. What he missed most, though, was the bravado, the cocky swagger they all adopted when they were shooting the breeze together. It might have been an act half the time, especially when they were heading into a dicey situation, but it was contagious."

The connections between soldiers aren’t forged only in combat, but also in their more casual, relaxed moments together. McCormick depicts U.S. troops here not as heroes or warriors, but as ordinary guys “scratching their balls” and “shooting the breeze.” The author humanizes the soldiers, depicting how they relate to each other and encouraging readers to relate to them as well.

“'Private Duffy, you know what collateral damage is, don’t you?'

Matt nodded. It was an army term for all the nonmilitary things that get destroyed by war—roads, factory buildings, sewage plants. Even livestock. It was also a euphemism the army used when one of its bombs ended up killing civilians."

Tellingly, the Army uses "collateral damage "to describe both the destruction of inanimate objects and the deaths of Iraqi citizens. This juxtaposition shows that, whether intentionally or not, the Army is dehumanizing Iraqis and devaluing their lives. This is a viewpoint Matt cannot accept, and after Lieutenant Brody writes off Ali’s death as collateral damage, Matt feels so distressed and guilty that he throws up.

"This is a strange place. You think there are rules and there’s right and wrong and you think officers are all assholes who only want to make your life miserable. And then you find out that everybody has a different idea of what’s right and wrong. And that a lot of people act like they want to know what’s going on but that they really don’t—because then they might have to do something about it. Like I said, it’s strange."

When Matt realizes the Army officers want to cover up a 10-year-old child’s death, he must shift his moral worldview completely. Matt is maturing, coming to understand that there are no absolutes of right or wrong. However, his newfound maturity means he can no longer connect with his life back in the States. Matt writes these words in a letter to his girlfriend, but rather than trying to communicate with her on this deeper level, he ends up abandoning this letter in favor of one asking about her biology test.

"It was like being an altar boy again. There was something very simple and real about kneeling to pray—nothing like the hasty “Dear Gods” he muttered in the middle of a firefight. And so Matt closed his eyes and waited. Waited to feel better, to feel the calm, the comfort that used to descend on him when he was an altar boy. He’d never told anyone, but he believed, really believed, that what he felt in that moment was grace.

No words of prayer came to him. But that was fine. And he didn’t feel the grace he’d hoped for, but after a while, after a few minutes of kneeling there, his eyes closed, the frantic hospital sound track faded to a hush, and something shifted in him. He couldn’t say what it was, but he felt lighter somehow when he finally opened his eyes and stood."

This quote describes Matt’s final prayer in the hospital, when he hopes to feel the “grace” he once did as a child. Matt doesn’t find that grace—after the things he’s seen and done in Iraq, redemption won’t come that easily—but the prayer does offer him some relief. As he has earlier in the novel, Matt turns to religion, and particularly to the Catholic rituals from his childhood, to deal with his guilt and inner turmoil.

"Matt reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the small box that held his medal. He handed it, without a word, to the priest. He hadn’t planned on this, but it felt right.

Father Brennan accepted it, simply, and without question. 'I’ll hold on to this for you, son,' he said. 'Until you’re ready.'”

Giving Father Brennan his Purple Heart, Matt implies that he does not deserve the medal—having killed a child, he is not a true hero. However, Father Brennan says that he’ll return the Purple Heart when Matt is “ready”—the priest seems to believe that Matt has acted heroically, and that one day he will be able to acknowledge his own bravery and valor.

"The streets were lively, the air thick with the smell of cardamom, coffee, black pepper, and there was a celebratory feeling in the air. The people were almost friendly, as friendly as he’d ever seen. And he had a sudden pang of something—fondness? goodwill?—for the Iraqi people.

He wouldn’t tell the guys, though. They’d make fun of him for sounding like a beauty-pageant contestant. But in that moment, he really did wish for peace. So these people could go back to living their lives. And so that he could go home. And see Caroline and his mom and Lizzy. And go to McDonald’s. And drink a cold beer. He smiled at the thought that it would be a lot easier to find someone to buy him a six-pack now that he was a vet."

Near the end of the novel, with a cease-fire in effect, both the Americans and Iraqis hope peace may be coming soon. Here the author gives a hint of life as it should be for the Iraqi people, with good cheer and friendliness in the air. McCormick articulates the best possible outcome to the Iraq war for all involved: that the Iraqis could go back to their normal lives, and the Americans could go home.

In addition, in the hospital, Matt could barely imagine life in the States—it seemed like another universe—but now he can mentally place himself back in that normalcy. The shift is a sign that Matt is beginning to heal and overcome his traumatic experience.

"He was just a kid, Matt had kept telling himself. And it was true. A kid who liked Skittles and American slang. A kid who could score a goal from twenty yards out, barefoot.

He was also an orphan who lived in a drainage pipe, a kid who was so hungry, so desperate, he’d do anything.

He was a kid—until someone gave him a pair of soccer cleats. After that, he was an enemy sympathizer. A spy. A spotter who had nearly gotten Matt killed."

Matt wrestles with the truth he’s just learned about Ali: that the boy was working with the insurgents. Instead of blaming Ali, Matt realizes the boy was acting as a "desperate," starving child, and again the author emphasizes how deeply children are affected by the Iraq war. In addition, the author illustrates the dangers of bringing Western culture to Iraq, as Ali ends up dying for a Western-style pair of soccer cleats.

"And Matt was a fool. He’d thought he was a good guy, the kind of guy who handed out art supplies to little kids and played soccer with them. But it was his friendship with Ali that had gotten the boy killed. He’d thought it was Justin who’d put them in danger. But by befriending Ali, Matt had actually put the whole squad at risk."

Here Matt sees the true complexities of interacting with the Iraqi people—actions that should do good, like befriending needy children, end up endangering everyone involved. Matt’s individual experience with Ali acts as a representation of Iraqi-American interactions on a larger scale: as an Army officer tells Matt, Iraqi insurgents use and hide behind civilians. The American soldiers’ very presence puts civilians in danger. This quotation also illustrates Matt’s growing maturity, as he no longer sees his actions in black-and-white terms, as right or wrong. Matt thought he was a “good guy,” but now he knows the truth is much more complex.

"What happened in the alley that day had haunted them both—had shaken them up so much that they’d nearly stopped being soldiers. But when it had mattered most, Justin still had his back and he had Justin’s."

This quote recalls Matt’s earlier assertion that war is about fighting for the soldier beside you, and knowing they’re fighting for you. It is this deep bond between soldiers that allows Justin and Matt to mend the rift caused by that day in the alley. Experiences of violence and trauma can “shake up” and “haunt” soldiers, but by turning to human connection, soldiers like Matt and Justin can begin to overcome this trauma.

"Matt thought about what Charlene had said when Ali stole his sunglasses. That’s what happens when you try to make friends with these people. And he thought about what Wolf had said about being in Iraq. We came over here to help these people and instead we’re killing them.

They were both right."

Matt reaches his final conclusion to a question that has haunted both him and the reader throughout the novel: what exactly is the U.S. troops’ role in Iraq? Are U.S. soldiers even capable of helping the Iraqis, or is any effort at connection, like Matt’s with Ali, doomed to end in tragedy? At the end of the novel, Matt accepts that there is no one right answer to this dilemma. Rather, the Iraq War seems to have placed U.S. soldiers in an almost impossible situation, one where there is no simple solution or "right" path to take.