“In this hauntingly direct war memoir, a cocky West Coast frat boy becomes a reflective leader in the later part of the Iraq conflict. Victory over the insurgency wasn’t foreordained it took the work of gritty soldiers and leaders.”

military, a force that imposed its will, both physical and moral, to shatter al Qaeda in Iraq and quash the Shiite-Sunni civil war and that is now withdrawing with honor … Gallagher’s platoon served in chaos and brought order. Gallagher is too modest, and too ironic, to tout his own accomplishments, so I’ll do it for him: He is a classic representative of the U.S.

Gallagher draws the reader into the everyday complexities of leading 44 soldiers from every strata of American society … Mr. An excellent snapshot of a junior officer embroiled in a counterinsurgency fight.Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound Insightful, colorful, and at times irreverent. In the midst of a war we're still struggling to understand, it's a privilege to understand very well at least one person's part in it Cleveland Plain Dealer Gallagher's writing is raw and uncensored, and also very good. Kaboom allows the reader to ride alongside an officer's day to day life in a war zone Portland Book Review Gallagher's unbridled candor recounting his time in Iraq is shocking, frightening and at times, deals with the mundane rigors of army life, but is ultimately to be commended. offers the reader an unfiltered, brutally honest look into the life of a young lieutenant struggling to bring some semblance of security and stability to a very unsecure and unstable place Bangkok Post (Thailand) In a word, his work is authentic, a rendering of wartime experiences that has been experienced by nearly his entire generation of warriors but has not been matched by his generation of writers It is full of pop culture references, clever writing, and the cynicism that accompanies his generation without sounding for a second like it is contrived or flimsy. It is unabashedly self-centered and self-aware, but manages to sound anything but self-absorbed. Not only does it successfully combine the finest authorial innovations of blogging with finest aspects of traditional memoir writing, but it easily and slyly avoids the traps of each as well. Gallagher’s Kaboom, simply stated, will likely be remembered as the quintessential memoir of his generation’s combat experiences, particularly in Iraq. Kaboom resonates with stoical detachement from and timeless insight into a war that we are still trying to understand SmokeĪs funny as it is harrowing Entertainment WeeklyĪt turns hilarious, maddening and terrifying Washington Post

Surely the Jarhead of the second Gulf war Patrick Hennessey, author of 'The Junior Officers' Reading Club'Ī sardonic, unnerving, one-of-a-kind Iraq war memoir.

Kaboom by matt gallagher