Over 100 people recently filled the Lipman Auditorium of the Massey Library and Technology Center on the Parham Road Campus as Reynolds hosted local author and war veteran Kevin Powers at an "Around the World Through Books" discussion.
The event featured Powers' novel "The Yellow Birds", which focused on 21 year-old Private Bartle and 18 year-old Private Murphy clinging to life as their platoon launched a bloody battle for a city during the Iraq war.
“I love to read and write for the
same reasons now that I did as a kid,” noted Powers when asked about how he got
started writing. “I can go and have any experience and try to understand the
lives of people totally different than me.”
Through his book and during the book
discussion, Powers examined the reactions of soldiers and his own life after military
deployments.
"What do you do or what do you
say when a loved one doesn’t come home,” noted Powers. “For me, it was
important that people were listening when I had something to say – that meant a
great deal to me.”
During the book, Powers said he wanted
to show the whole picture “It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back
home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still
deeply at risk of being injured in a different way. I thought it was important
to acknowledge that.”
The program
was a free community event sponsored by Reynolds’s Multicultural Enrichment
Council for the purpose of encouraging cultural diversity throughout the
Reynolds campuses and communities.
