Based in part on a blog that he wrote while serving in the US Army in Iraq between 2007 and 2009, Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War is Lieutenant (later Captain) Matt Gallagher’s account of what it was like to be in the forefront of the US ‘Surge’, the massive influx of troops that, along with a switch from lethal operations to counter insurgency, was designed to quell the constant violence directed both against Coaltion troops and by Iraqis against each other. Gallagher started his deployment as a platoon leader, taking charge of four armoured Stryker vehicles and their complement of cavalrymen in patrols, security and police operations – but it’s clear from the book that his duties included a lot of things that the average reader will not have anticipated.

The emphasis of the US, under its new General David Petraeus, on decentralised, local operations, and the desire to avoid massive shows of force, fire-fights and the other trappings of full-on war, mean that Gallagher spends a lot of time smoothing the ruffled feathers of local sheikhs, developing informants and wrangling with the local militias and police. It’s war, but not as many would recognise it. The period that Gallagher was in Iraq is later than that documented by other tomes, such as The Good Soldiers or Generation Kill, but unlike those books, Kaboom has the benefit of being written by a serving officer, not a journalist embedded with soldiers – so it has a true soldier’s perspective on the US Army’s obsession with PowerPoint presentations and stats, its numerous bureaucratic idiocies and political follies (and, of course, the many good and brave men who serve).

Gallagher is a more than capable scribe – he began blogging with the knowledge of his superiors, but in what became a minor cause celebre in the US, he was forbidden from continuing by the Pentagon after he publicly questioned a decision that he didn’t like. It was a shame he wasn’t allowed to continue, as he demonstrates a clear-eyed understanding of the problems facing both the US Army and the Iraqi people; he is compassionate, cynical and too strongly attached to the men under his immediate command to have a long-term career in the army (he left after his tour of Iraq ended). The only minor downsides are occasional dreamlike poetical diversions, Gallagher’s contemporaneous jottings, which get a bit too Apocalypse Now for my taste. These are easily skipped, however.

I doubt there is a better book for getting a genuine understanding of the realities of counter insurgency in the 21st century, complete with all its Catch-22 insanity (paying militias who were almost certainly shooting at you mere months before, because it’s the least bad option available) than Kaboom, and I can’t think of anyone I would rather provide the tour than Matt Gallagher.

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