Sarajevo

Pretty Birds, by Scott Simon, is a troubling, fascinating chronicle of the effects of modern warfare. The city of Sarajevo is under siege during the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, its citizens held captive by the firepower of nationalists seeking to create an racially monolithic Greater Serbia. The novel centers around a teenaged girl, Irena, who becomes a sniper as part of the efforts of Sarajevans, many of them secular Muslims, to fight back.
You may know Scott Simon as the anchor for National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday. He was a war correspondent for NPR during the war in Yugoslavia, and he's said in interviews that much of the novel is based on his first-hand observations. He talked about the novel, his first, with Terry Gross on the radio program Fresh Air. Listen to the interview here.
On my friend Kristin's recommendation, I then read a memoir called War Cake by Linda Flynn Beekman, who lives in the Tampa area. She subtitled the book, "A Witness in the Siege of Sarajevo," and it's a first-person account of her travels back and forth during the war. Beekman would bring small amounts of medicine and supplies to the people, with the additional goal of serving as a witness for peace. Many of the details in "Pretty Birds" and "War Cake" are identical, such as the people going to the old beer factory for water because its sits over natural springs, or the tunnel dug over the course of months as a secret way for people to leave the city.
One of the many things that fascinates me about these books is that both Beekman and Simon say they were generally pacifists, but changed their minds once they were on the ground.
Beekman writes:

I came to Sarajevo believing I am a pacifist, but now I join Sarajevans in hoping for NATO air strikes. I believe NATO has the capability to bomb the tanks and weapons on the mountains surrounding Sarajevo without killing anyone if they give the aggressor ample time to leave before the attack. Civilians in Sarajevo are hostages in their own homes. The attackers have cut the electricity, water, and food supply, and bombard residents daily with mortars and sniper fire. They deliberately shoot children. Sarajevans deserve to be helped or at least allowed to defend themselves. The one time in my life I am in favor of U.S. intervention, it does not come.

Both books also show the everyday effects that warfare has on a modern city. It's impossible not to think that this is close to what a war in the United States might look like. Not that I think a war on U.S. soil is likely. But given the way warfare seems to be such a lingering blight on all humanity, it also seems foolish to think it could never happen here. These books made me queasily consider what that might be like. And that made me think a little more deeply about my opinions on U.S. foreign policy.