The Yellow Birds

Much of Bart's preoccupation as a narrator, alongside memory (see above), has to do with truth, and whether there is (or can be) such a thing as an absolute truth, especially in regard to what happened in Al Tafar. Early in the novel, at the end of the first chapter, Bart says, "But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed" (24). This sets up a distinction between what is true versus what is believed, which foreshadows the later inaccuracies in the official version of events, as shown in Chapters 9 and 11. The official account, for all intents and purposes, is the "believed" version, despite parts (if not the majority) of it being untrue, at least as far as Bart sees it. 

This rather straightforward distinction between what happened and what people believe happened is further complicated in subsequent chapters. In Chapter 3, Bart thinks, "there was a sharp distinction between what was remembered, what was told, and what was true. And I didn't think I'd ever figure out which was which" (60). The confusion Bart feels blurs the lines between these various iterations of the truth, noting that what is told is colored by one's motivations in telling, and human memory being notoriously fallible and also subjective. At one point, Bart revises a previous statement, saying, "But none of that was true," and then adding a correction (115). Even what one tells oneself can be untrue. 

On top of these complications surrounding the truth, Powers adds another: when the captain from C.I.D. comes to arrest Bart, and Bart finds out what the official explanation will be for what happened to Murph, he says, "I just wish more of it was true" (188). In response, the captain says, "Me, too, but it's lies like this that make the world go 'round," implying that not only is it possible for the truth to be brushed aside, but  it’s often necessary, especially in the context of military investigations (189). Lies can be a propulsive force, while the truth can be a hindrance. The question of for whom lies can be productive comes back around in the final chapters, when Murph's mother visits Bart in prison. She tells Bart that her friends tell her she needs to "find [her] truth in all of this," then continues, "As if mine's supposed to be different from yours, like you got one and I got another. What the hell's that mean, your truth?" (222). Mrs. Murphy's frustration at the opacity ascribed to the truth, after having been silenced by the powerful bureaucratic machinations of the Army, seems to signal that institutions and systems of power can benefit from lies, but perhaps individuals cannot. 

In Chapter 2, before shipping out to Iraq, Bart narrates that he enjoys the freedom from decision-making that the army offers; however, he goes on to say, "Eventually, I had to learn that freedom is not the same thing as the absence of accountability" (35). This theme of responsibility and accountability follows Bart throughout his tour of duty and haunts him after he has returned home. In the moment after the battle in the orchard, Bart says, "I didn't want to be responsible for [Murph]. I had enough to worry about. I was disintegrating, too" (120). One of the reasons the responsibility for Murph weighs so heavily on Bart is that Bart is also struggling, and no one is helping him.

As the novel continues, and Powers reveals more of what led up to Murph's death, along with the circumstances around Bart and Sterling finding his body, the theme of responsibility shifts from Bart feeling responsible for keeping Murph alive to Bart feeling responsible for the fact that Murph is no longer alive. In a moment when Bart is reliving his traumatic experiences in a stream-of-consciousness rush, he thinks of himself as a "murderer, the fucking accomplice, the at-bare-minimum bearer of some fucking responsibility" for Murph's death (145). Even though he is not certain how responsible he is, he feels he "was guilty of something, that much was certain, that much I could feel on a cellular level" (179). This gut feeling is what allows him to go quietly to prison, despite the inaccuracies of the charges and final, official rendition of events.  

Another element of responsibility Powers explores in the novel is obligation. When Bart is in the church in Germany, prior to flying back to the U.S., a priest offers to pray for him, but Bart refuses, saying, "I appreciated the gesture, but it seemed obligatory and somehow therefore meaningless, as all gestures come to seem" (60). Here, obligation makes the gesture meaningless for Bart, rather than being heartfelt and therefore having meaning. However, the same word, "obligation," is again used on the next page when Bart is talking about Murph: "I felt an obligation to remember him correctly" (61). When it comes to Murph, the word Bart had previously associated with meaninglessness is meant in earnest, perhaps because Bart's obligation is to a friend and fellow soldier, rather than a stranger. 

One of the elements of narrative that is intimately tied to the themes of accountability and responsibility is guilt. Guilt becomes one of Bart's defining characteristics as the novel develops. After Murph's girlfriend breaks up with him, Bart reflects that he wished Murph had had a more intense reaction, "something that I could look back on and say, yes, you were fighting too, you burned to be alive, and whatever failure or accident of nature caused you to be killed could be explained by something other than the fact that I'd missed your giving up" (82). Bart's guilt tends to take the form of regretting that he had not seen signs of things that were impending, or, having seeing them, had not acknowledged them.

After the battle in the orchard, when Bart, Murph, and Sterling come across a fellow soldier dying of a gunshot wound, Bart, upon looking back, thinks he might have broken his promise by not comforting Murph soon enough. Here, there is a complex moment of multilayered guilt. Once Bart does go to Murph, Murph tells Bart he’d cut in line ahead of the now-dead soldier and says, “I feel like a dick” (121). At the same time, Bart feels guilty in the moment for not having gone to comfort Murph. On tops of this, Bart, in the present day, feels the guilt more strongly because he knows what will eventually happen to Murph. All of these layers of guilt coalesce to form the characters and guide their actions.

Later, after Bart is home again, he feels something akin to guilt as he goes daily to buy beer, saying, "I had the feeling that if I encountered anyone they would intuit my disgrace and would judge me instantly" (132). In the aftermath of Murph's death and Bart's return, Bart's guilt over his role in Murph's death begins to shift into a more general guilt at not being the hero people seem to expect him to be. We see this in his interaction with the bartender in the airport in Chapter 5, when Bart says, “[I] [d]idn’t want to pretend I’d done anything except survive” (107).