Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War

by Matt Gallagher

When Lieutenant Matt Gallagher began his blog with the aim of keeping his family and friends apprised of his experiences, he didn’t anticipate that it would resonate far beyond his intended audience. His subjects ranged from mission details to immortality, grim stories about Bon Jovi cassettes mistaken for IEDs, and the daily experiences of the Gravediggers—the code name for members of Gallagher’s platoon. When the blog was shut down in June 2008 by the U.S. Army, there were more than twentyfive congressional inquiries regarding the matter as well as reports through the military grapevine that many high-ranking officials and officers at the Pentagon were disappointed that the blog had been ordered closed.Based on Gallagher’s extraordinarily popular blog, Kaboom is “at turns hilarious, maddening, and terrifying,” providing “raw and insightful snapshots of a conflict many Americans have lost interest in” (Washington Post). Like Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead, Gallagher’s Kaboom resonates with stoic detachment and timeless insight into a war that we are still trying to understand.

Genres: War, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, History, Memoir, Middle East, Military History

336 pages, Hardcover

Published March 23, 2010

About the author

Matt Gallagher is a US Army veteran and the author of four books, including the novels Youngblood and Daybreak. His work has appeared in Esquire, ESPN, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Wired, among other places. A graduate of Wake Forest and Columbia, he is the recipient of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship, a Sewanee Writers’ Conference Fellowship, and was selected as the 2022 Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum Writer-in-Residence. He lives with his family in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow, i couldnt disagree with the other review any more. im a huge military buff - Nam vet - and when my brother brought an advanced copy of Kaboom home to me from the bookstore he works at, was excited. Gallagher blew me away. he gets IT - any vet knows what IT is, and Gallagher describes it in all its magical poetry and crudeness. His publisher is marketing this as THE Iraq book and I for one agree - unlike other GWOT memoirs out there (cough ... officer memoirs), this isn't about Gallagher - its about his soldiers. Hes the young LT that there never were enough of.

@ bob - you do realize that vonnegut and heller wrote fiction, right, and this is a memoir? theres a huge difference. I really think you should give the book another try and more than twenty pages this time. Sorry for the rant, but this book finally prodded me out of lurker status and into full-fledged reviewing.

[Nicholas Carpenito · Rating 5 out of 5]

As other military folks on here have said, the brilliance of this book is that the Gallagher really conveys the military mindset to the reader. It's not a pile of self righteous garbage, it's not a propaganda book, pro or anti war, and it's not what you would expect a book on war to be. It's the truth, and it's how military folk really act, and how we talk, and how we think.
It has all the depression and heartache that comes from being separated from everyone you've ever known and loved, but you can find that in any book. It's the stupid nicknames, the jokes that you can't tell people back home because they weren't there, and won't get it. It's all the little things you do to keep from going crazy, that turn out to be some of the best, funniest memories you'll ever have. That's what makes this book special.
As someone else said, this is THE book on the Iraq War, and the modern soldier.

Side note, met the author and his girlfriend at the local book shop singing, nice people. He does downplay in the book how she was with him from academy to DD214, and is still with him, but that seems like the type of people they are. Not really the type to talk themselves up, real nice regular folks. If you ever get the chance to see him it's worth it to drop in and say hi.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a staff officer in a combat arms branch of the Army, I really appreciated Gallagher's insights into both of those positions. Kaboom addresses some of the issues that I see in the military, such as the generation gap between junior and senior officers. Aside from those observations, this was a good story about his time in Iraq, and a good perspective of that war for those who only know it through CNN, MSBNC, or Fox news. I think anyone who wants a front-line soldier's perspective on the war should read this and spend less time watching talking heads.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A philosophy major becomes a warrior and his idealism meets or should I say crashes into the stark reality of not only war but bureaucracy as well. Lt G becomes Captain G in his deployment to Iraq. He manages to piss off his battalion commander by blogging and getting national attention in the process. That gets him a transfer out of the unit but he lucks out and is assigned to another infantry unit in another part of Iraq. So now he gets an opportunity to go from a rural COIN area to an urban COIN area. I could relate to the young LT in his rants and observations about everything. I'd go to a briefing by a general at the top saying how we're going to change things and then we'd go back to work and the colonels would do the same old stuff. Reading this doesn't give me much confidence that Iraq will stay together once we leave. The tribal mentality will never go away. I really feel for those Iraqis who work as interpreters. All in all a very insightful and even soulful book into what it's like to lead soldiers in war. Kaboom could be a metaphor for his short military career.

[Richard Farnsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an IRAQI Freedom vet myself, I identified rather well with this book. An excellent example of what the soldiers who fight our wars go through. I deployed as a Major, so I was a little higher in the food chain than Gallagher was when I served. The book also showed some professional growth from first to last. The first half of the book covered Gallagher's exploits in the Cav when he had a blog going. Were I to have worked with him then, I would have thought he was a typical self-important millenial junior officer (whiney, lack of persepective, a little bit of a slacker, but still doing his best as he understood his role- but a little too dissmissive of his higher ups to learn much from them). The second half of the book showed his growth into a mature team member.

The prose was a little uneven to me, as as literature I would have probably given the book 3 stars, but his is a good example of how the message was more important to me than how it was conveyed.

If you want to know what Iraq was like for a twenty-something you got's'ta read it.

[Michael Flanagan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a rarity for me it as it now belongs to a hand full of books I could not finish. No that’s a tad unfair it was a book I could NOT be bothered finishing. From the outset I found myself wanting to skip pages to see if this book improved and alas it did not.

The title to this book is completely misleading in my opinion, it led me to believe this was going to be another action packed true life story from within the suck. What I got instead is a story best suited to the blog from which the book was derived. If I knew the author then I am sure I would have found it fascinating to read what my friend was up to. As a true life story from a troop serving in Iraq this is by far the worst book I have read in the genre.

As I stated in the beginning after reading about 70% of this book I waved my little white flag and put it back on the book shelf. Why I can't recommend this book please don't write it off as it has got a high average rating it just was not my cup of chai.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

The quote on the cover of the paperback edition says "As funny as it is harrowing." I found it to be neither.

Gallagher doesn't give even one first hand account of any firefight that turned out to be anything more than a misunderstanding, and we hear of no actual IED attacks…or of any real combat at all. This book documents the tedium and boredom of war and gives you that very experience in reading it.

If you want a war memoir about actual combat experiences, I recommend No True Glory (West), Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper (Davis) and SEAL Team Six (Wasdin).

Gallagher does offer some insight into the interactions between military and sheiks in Iraq during the counterinsurgency, but the book fails to deliver anything close to a kaboom.

-Matthew Vermillion

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ghallaher provides insight into the war in Iraq from the soldiers perspective. This isn't a glory story, an adventure story, or a political story, it’s a description of the men, the circumstances surrounding their patrols, the ridiculous bureaucratic hoops, and everything else that is associated with America being in Iraq. I loved it for his honesty, for the straight forward comments, and his no-holds-bar approach to telling things as they exist. Want insight into the lives of men who served and into the lives of Iraqis who are there? This will provide one perspective worth reading.

[Gamespacenl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging personal story from a LT, later captain in the US Army serving in Iraq/Baghdad.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the most honest and raw moments....and I appreciated reading the perspective of a junior officer in the field. I was a bit put off by sections which seemed more self-conscious of trying to convey a specific message/point...they seemed to lack the charm and spontaneity of the best sections. It surprised me that there was so little combat or violence, but it was interesting to see how Gallagher's units spent their time trying to undermine the insurgents' efforts. The author can be highly perceptive at times, but he mostly limited to himself and I would have liked to hear more of his deeper thoughts about his comrades in arms because most of them are only described very briefly.

[J Leonard B · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times poetic. At times brutal. Always honest. Matt Gallagher gives the kind of insight into the day to day running of a counter insurgency unit in Iraq that you will struggle to find elsewhere. I found the book engrossing, funny, harrowing and thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended!

[S S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relatable

[Kevin Donohue · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting memoir about an officer in Iraq during the surge. The author is not a cartoon of a hung ho warrior or a a disillusioned cynic. Worth reading.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting perspective from a young company grade officer. He is not completely untalented as a writer, but I must admit I found a lot of his writing to be pretty cliche-ridden and his attitude a bit narcissistic. He seems to me a very representative example of his generation (not a compliment). He does accurately capture Army life downrange, but the "so what" of his tale was mostly lacking. He's a committed lieutenant who didn't want to leave his men. And that is unusual or notable because...? He thinks he really understands small-unit leadership - really 'gets it' in a way his leaders don't. If there is one universal trait among combat arms junior officers, that's probably it. Until they grow up and become those more senior leaders, of course. His savaging of mid-level bureaucracy, especially at the battalion and brigade level was pretty funny at times (maybe not as funny to those who have never been in the Army or served downrange), but I get the sense that he willfully suppressed any sympathies for LTC Larry and the MAJ Moes, and made no effort at all to walk a mile in their moccasins before rendering judgment. I suspect a lot of that was resentment over not getting his way in his interactions with them. Had he stayed in the Army long enough to do the jobs that his field grades have to do, he'd probably have a lot more nuanced view. If he had gone on a subsequent deployment with a different unit, he might have a different (and less immature) attitude too. Still, it was a pretty honest portrayal. The grunts' disdain for FOBBITs and REMFs has always been a part of Army existence. For all his tough talk, there was probably an airborne unit nearby that regarded him and his platoon as a bunch of slugs, and SF Teams that consider the plain old paratroopers as candy-asses. (Full disclosure: as an ex-infantry officer myself, I felt some of those feelings rise when I read the phrase "air conditioned vehicles" (the Strykers). Air conditioning! How soft can you get! ;-) Then I slapped myself. The combat support and combat service support troops have had to put up with these tougher-than-thou attitudes forever, and it looks like that aspect of Army culture will never change.

Kaboom is worth a read, but should be read through the filter of understanding that he presents a narrow slice of a very big war, and his experiences are not universal or necessarily more accurate than other portrayals. Last comment - on the stream of consciousness technique - to paraphrase Truman Capote, 'that's not writing, that's typing.'

[Steve Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

After 18 months service in Vietnam and Cambodia during the 70's I came to the conclusion that it all meant nothing and the surreal was the currency of normal. Separated from that experience by several continents and several decades reading this personal account of a combat soldier in Iraq smacked of nothing if not deja vu. Nothing changes but that it stays the same and the experience of war by those who actually fight it contains so many consistencies that the term "universal soldier" has a defined relevance to we, the combat soldiers of the last century. The title says it al "Embracing the Suck". Ee've always had to embrace the suck and while the details change slightly under the influence of place and time it is absolutely the same suck! Brothers all we embrace then spend the rest of our lives disentangling ourselves.

The form of this book is simply a series of stories recounted, as soldiers do with their brothers after the event and often over a beer on one of the few occasions that call us back together from time to time. It is an unpretentious telling and it rings with authenticity. If there is a God may he preserve the combat soldier in the face of the obtuse egotism of field grades and Higher; the pogues and the would be if they could be, the ignorance and venality of the political class and the apathy of the counterfeit universe for which we supposedly fought. Ask any one of us and you will find that we all share the experience of it all as a monumental con.

[Carter McNeese · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great first person look at what life was like as a junior officer in the Iraq War. As someone of the same generation of Matt Gallagher, I was struck by how the soldiers that he commands (as well as himself) are people. He does not romanticize them, and yet they still come out as heroes, albeit realistic ones.

In striving to tell us the truth about what life was like, Gallagher problematizes the acceptable ideas about Americans military personnel, command structures, and modern urban combat. It is probably why he got in trouble with his O6 and the rest of the command structure for the blog that serves as the source material for the book.

A great read. Everyone in our generation should read this book to fully understand what our military members, and in particular line combat soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors, went through. I also hope the command structure reads it and makes the changes that need to be made.

[Katherine Tomlinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gallagher comes to much the same conclusion about the quagmire in Iraq as the author of the vastly superior LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY, the people at the top have no idea what they’re doing and as a result, American soldiers are put at risk. Much of the story is episodic, and there are elements that will remind audiences of everything from JARHEAD (which it STRONGLY resembles) to GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM. Gallagher maintains an ironic distance from it all that becomes somewhat grating and smirky, but he is a good writer. What makes this something more than yet ANOTHER Iraq memoir is the machinations surrounding his blog and shutting it down, which unfortunately, only takes about five pages of the book.

[Katey Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly informative, entertaining, concrete look at the Iraq war through one man's eyes. I learned something new about Iraq, Iraqi culture, the US Military, or fighting war, on every page. Gallagher's sense of humor is pervasive--at times subtle, other times self-consciously clever--and always welcome. His knowledge of each individual situation was admirable and fascinating to explore as I read along. Most of all, this book--which began as a blog--does what so many other books that began as blogs don't do: this book is peppered with honest, brief moments of reflection that reveal a character developing, learning, and turning a personal and professional corner. Aptly titled; a great read.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm generally NOT a fan of the stream of consciousness school of writing, and the parts of this book that experiment with it are generally not successful (after the first few entries I skimmed those parts). Also, I really wanted to buy him (actually, his copy editor) a dictionary, since some of his word usages just didn't fit.

On the whole, though, the memoir is a fascinating look at life in a scout unit in Iraq, with all the boredom, bureaucracy, frustration, and--yes--horror that entails.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

"More often than not, talking to young women only aggravated my impatience with the inane, while talking to young men only exacerbated my disgust for the soft."
-Veteran Matt Gallagher

Fantastic look inside one cavalry officer's 15 months in Iraq spanning 2007 - 2009. Profane, gritty, in-your-face account that takes you to the action - sometimes on patrol in a column of Strykers, sometimes. regrettably, fashioning PowerPoint slides. An admirable rendition of the life of a junior officer in today's U.S. military at war. Recommended.

[Demi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaboom was written for readers like me, the post-9/11 youth who have in large numbers become politically weary, because (rather than in spite) of our U.S. history education and cultural upbringing. As can be expected of this skeptical audience, I would be unwilling to conjure the words "voice of the generation" for any book except Matt Gallagher's. Wrought with candid contradiction and gallows humor, I laughed and cried my way through this entire read and plan to pass it along to anyone who ever gives an eastward shrug toward U.S. involvement in current events.

[John Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot of good information here but it seemed a bit long and repetitive although that was the nature of the author's assignment. Still, I don't want to read a book that is repetitive. And I wish the author did not feel compelled to tell us how committed he was an how hard he worked quite so many times. (Although I am sure it is true.)

There was some interesting insight as to just how money is being spent in Iraq and what a waste the whole endeavor is. I have read a lot of books about the wars in The Middle East and this was a worthwhile one.

[Tom V · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Embracing the suck" should be the title of this little book. Our LT has a lot on his mind, sometimes to the detriment of his good thinking, which has it's downfalls. As a war novel, this is a fine example, because it tells the story in a straight-forward way, but with enough humor that it seems like a storyteller working the crowd. As non-fiction, I was put off by the "aliases." Hell, just call them Sp x or Sgt y. There's enough alphabet to go around.

All in all, as a non-participant, I'm woefully ignorant of the facts on the ground. But I know a good story when I see it.

Four stars.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exciting if somewhat uneven memoir of a soldier's 15 month tour of duty in Iraq. Laced with a saucy mix of barracks humor and moments of sheer terror, Gallagher seems to capture the spirit that prevailed among the soldiers in Iraq just before and just after the election of President Obama. A good read. This will make an excellent movie someday.