Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers

Private Robin Perry joins the army during his senior year in high school because "I felt like crap after 9-11 and I wanted to do something, to stand up for my country." In February 2003 he becomes part of the initial U.S. troop deployment in the second Iraq war. He tells his story in honest, soul-searching letters to his uncle Richie and through cheerful letters to his mother. Robin starts his tour of duty optimistically, but soon wonders what the war is really about, and finally concludes that "we were in a war of complete randomness. A war that has no logic except the constant adding up of numbers. How many are dead?" Robin takes readers behind the headlines to the everyday life of a soldier, an existence full of fear, bravery, boredom, confusion, compassion, and violence. Myers has created a voice in Robin that never wavers from that of a young man trying to make some sense out of his tasks and his duty as a soldier. The book takes a non-political approach letting readers to create their own definitions for the central word: war.

Compelling read.