Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War

In this hauntingly direct war memoir, a cocky West Coast frat boy becomes a reflective leader in the later part of the Iraq conflict. Not long after his 2007 deployment, Lt. Gallagher had become a much-read blogger, but his blunt account ran afoul of the higher-ups. In this blog-like memoir of his year-plus in Iraq, he provides an episodic, day-by-day account of life during wartime, covering everything from the fear of shooting innocent citizens to the impact of a Dear John letter on a unit. Gallagher employs a close eye and enormous compassion when recounting tragedies like a horrible explosive accident and pervasive poverty and despair in an area known as ""trash village."" Gallagher's vivid, atmospheric descriptions can occasionally get away from him (""It was modern Iraq, permanently soaked in a blood-red-sea past it would never be able to part""), but he provides much canny, moving commentary on the power of war to transform soldiers and civilians: ""Suddenly the stare was the norm house by house, block by block, and town by town, and all of the flower petals dried up, and we suddenly recognized that those cheers of gratitude were actually pleas for salvation.""