The Yellow Birds

Returning to September 2004, in Al Tafar, Iraq, Chapter 6 picks up where Chapter 4 left off. As they are about to enter the orchard, Bart says, "I kept going because Murph kept going and Sterling and the LT kept going and the other squads would keep going and I was terrified that I would be the one who did not" (116). Bart seems to be in a fugue-like state; he is not really processing what is happening as the mortars begin to fall and they are under fire and firing back. Finally, the fighting dies down. 

Bart and Murph and Sterling find that one of their fellow soldiers, someone they don't really know, has been shot in the belly and is dying as the medics try to care for him. After the wounded private dies, Bart says aloud, "I thought he was going to say something" (119). Sterling says they never do, that he only saw it once. Bart feels like he needs to know what this one dying soldier's last words were, but Sterling tells him he will only "make it into something bigger than it is" (120), and instead Bart should look after Murph, who is on the ground and cradling the dead private's head in his lap.