The graduate student felt the soldiers’ heartache while reading “The Yellow Birds,” this year’s pick for the One Book, One Community program, an initiative created in 2001 to connect East Lansing community members and MSU students through literature.

“My generation can really understand and identify with this novel,” said Hodges, the program’s project manager. “(The war) has really been a part of our entire lives.”

The program’s book choice, announced last Thursday, falls on the same year the U.S. marks its 10th anniversary since the beginning of the Iraq War.

“This fictional-contemporary war novel is a timely selection,” Acting Provost June Youatt said in a release.

In the fictional novel, author Kevin Powers follows a soldier’s journey from his harrowing experiences fighting in the Iraq War to his struggles readjusting to his former life upon his return home.

Powers himself served in Iraq in the U.S. Army between 2004-05 as a machine gunner in the Iraq cities of Mosul and Tal Afar. He was unable to comment as of press time.

City of East Lansing Communications Coordinator Ami Van Antwerp said the One Book, One Community board spent four months reading in search of a novel able to stir conversation between East Lansing residents and students before agreeing on “The Yellow Birds.”

“Whether people believe in the cause of the war or not, this story is really about what soldiers go through,” Van Antwerp said.

As someone with friends overseas and veterans in her family, Hodges said the book forced her to compare her life to that of a service member, especially soldiers her age.

“I’m here being able to go to college and get my (doctorate), and they’re over there sacrificing,” she said, adding it shed new light on their different worlds.

Powers will host a book signing at 7 p.m. Aug. 25 at Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road, and will address MSU’s incoming freshmen class Aug. 26 at Breslin Center.