The third topic that creates a sense of realism is the use of technological warfare. The massacre also symbolizes present day separation of families, whether it be because of the war, military, or deportation. Sarat sends Dana on the bus and begins her search for their mom and Simon, she never finds their bodies. Sarat has still not found her mother and Simon the next morning the “Free Southerners arrived,” and Sarat went back up to find Dana and take her down to the courtyard, Dana cries at the result of the massacre, but Sarat is almost numb to the pain. Sarat runs into a tent when she has a chance and finds “Sabrina, a refugee from Mississippi,” she is beaten and bloody, Sarat sits with Sabrina until her last breath. This implies that Sarat was using the courage of knowing her brother was alive to push her to continue but when she found the clan dead it disappeared.Īs she stands there, she begins to hear the militia heading toward her and “shook her from her paralysis,” (Akkad, 202) she drops into the pile of dead bodies to hide from the men. As she sneaks her way through the camp she finds the body of “Eli, the Virginia Cavalier,” and she realizes she is surrounded by boys of the “rebels from her clan.” While witnessing this, Sarat loses all confidence she had to find her mother and her brother. As the terror continues throughout the night, Sarat leaves Dana’s side momentarily while she sleeps to try to find their mom and Simon.

“The gunfire echoed” as Dana and Sarat runs through Camp Patience to escape the militia. She then runs back to her family’s tent to try to find her mother, Martina, her twin sister, Dana, and her brother, Simon, but only Dana is there. When the massacre arrived at Camp Patience, nobody is expecting the militia to appear at the “northern gate.” Sarat is out by the gate when they began to break through it. From an American perspective, anyone living in the United States does not hear about the living conditions of those affected by war in Afghanistan as well as in other countries. At this point in the book it is “July 2081,” and Sarat and her family have been living at the refugee camp for “six years.” The living condition of these refugee camps relate to the present day camps that one may find the Syrian Refugees living in, along with the NATO commands that are living in a FOB (Forward Operating Base) in tents and are constantly surrounded by enemy fire and dust. A boy from Alabama named Marcus Exum is introduced in chapter five, he states “My dad says anyone who stays more than a month is gonna die here,” this implies that the living conditions are bad enough that they would either die from something at the camp or they would be killed. The families that live at Camp Patience are not living in the best conditions.

Omar el akkad's novel american war