Kaboom

by Matt Gallagher (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $3.45

  Iraq, late 2007. Lieutenant Matt Gallagher arrives just as US policy shifts from lethal operations to counter-insurgency. He encounters a world where nothing is as it seems. Friends are enemies, reconciliation is war, roads are bombs and silence is deadly. Nothing left to do except 'embrace the suck'...and blog about it. Matt Gallagher's response was to write an on-line journal (called Kaboom ) which quickly went viral. Read by thousands of soldiers who recognised its unflinchingly honest portrayal of the real war, as well as high-ranking Pentagon officials and interested parties around the world, Kaboom was shut down by the US Army in June 2008. Now you can read the whole story, based on that brilliant, acerbic, banned blog. Kaboom paints a shockingly original and uncompromising portrait of a savage war the world is still struggling to understand.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2010

  $3.45

  When Lieutenant Matt Gallagher began his blog with the aim of keeping his family and friends apprised of his experiences, he didnt 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 Gravediggersthe code name for members of Gallaghers platoon. When the blog was shut down in June 2008 by the U. S. Army, there were more than twenty-five 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 Gallaghers 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 Swoffords Jarhead, Gallaghers Kaboom resonates with stoic detachment and timeless insight into a war that we are still trying to understand.