Purple Heart Chapters 1-4

Matt Duffy an eighteen year old boy who is in the Iraq war, woke up to a throbbing pain in his foot in the Green Zone which was now a medical center. "The famous Green Zone. The walled compounded inside Baghdad where Saddam Hussein had once lived. Now it was occupied by the central Provisional Authority. The brass" (pg11).  It is ironic that a medical center for America is in Saddam Husseins' old house. The doctor said that Matt has TBI, or Traumatic brain injury, which he should recover from over time. The last thing that Matt saw was a young Iraqi boy at the end on an alley way before the blast hit. The blast threw the boy into the air like a rag doll, far above the burning city. Matt awoke again in the medical hospital, to a officer and a lieutenant colonel who awarded him the Purple  Heart, which is a medal that soldiers are awarded for wounds sustained in combat. At first Matt did not want the medal, he just wanted to know what was wrong with him, and what had happened to the Iraqi boy. Many soldiers die for the Purple Heart, and yet Matt did not seem to care about the award. Matt is recovering from a battle wound, which was bigger than himself. Matt was trying to figure out what had happened to his troops, as well as himself because everything was now a blur to him. These battle wounds have shaped Matt into a different person, which will change his perspective on the war as he continues to recover from his injury.