He constantly feared for his family’s safety — his 10-year-old cousin had guns, knives and hand grenades as toys in order to protect his family.

“Try to imagine going back to your life as a student, living these moments day by day and still being able to function,” Attal said.

Attal and other members of MSU faculty, students and a U.S. doctor who spent time in Iraq during the conflict spoke at a panel Tuesday night at the East Lansing Public Library to share their experiences and give community members insight into life in a war zone.

The MSU Muslim Studies Program presented the panel discussion as part of East Lansing’s annual One Book, One Community program.

The book selected this year was “The Yellow Birds,” a novel penned by Iraq War veteran and author Kevin Powers.

In the book, he told the story of fictional soldiers and their experiences while fighting in the Middle East. Tuesday’s panelists were able to describe events from another perspective..

English professor Jyotsna Singh, who visited Iraq in 2011, said she was frustrated after visiting the Middle East by the dominance and structure of Western news media outlets in the war on terrorism.

Singh said a lot of societies are about the lives and culture of people and oftentimes, Western media flatten those stories, focusing only on destruction.

“We hear stories about families being displaced in Iran and Iraq, but when you meet the people and go there it’s nothing like the drowning media that you hear here,” Singh said during the panel discussion.

Associate professor of history Emine Evered said she wanted to share the stories of those impacted by war in Middle Eastern society to complement the narrative of the U.S. soldiers in “The Yellow Birds.”

The experiences of ordinary people who are shaped by war provide an interesting outlet through which to view the conflict, Evered said.

“We see there’s relocation, deaths and mortality. It brings in the whole picture, to some extent.”

In the wake of the Iraq War in 2003, it became increasingly difficult to survive because of the diminished resources, English associate professor Salah Hassan said.

There were many American run universities beforehand, but when the war started, Iraqi people were not free to work with American scholars, ultimately weakening the Iraqi educational system.

“The United Nations estimated it would cost $20 billion to rebuild the educational system and what the U.S. is offering is a tiny amount,” Hassan said. “If people are reading and studying, people aren’t going to be fighting as much.”

The discussion was one of the final events scheduled for this year’s One Book, One Community program. On Sept. 25, Rep. David Knezek, D-Dearborn Heights, will wrap up community activities by discussing his experience as an Iraq War veteran from 6-7:30 p.m. in Room 332 of the James Madison Library.