Matt Gallagher

What makes this war memoir affecting is that the author, no matter what his travails, doesn't kid himself that he is any more than a type in a traditional story; he's not the first smart-ass junior officer to run afoul of authority and he won't be the last. Apart from giving you the dirty-boots feel of what the day-in/day-out grind of working counter-insurgency feels like, and dealing forthrightly with his own limitations and doubts, Gallagher seems to make his points about the current show more institutional issues of the Big Green Machine not from a lingering sense of resentment but from a true enthusiasm for the service. show less

Matt Gallagher's first novel, YOUNGBLOOD, is, simply stated, one HELLuva good read! Its compelling plot and complex characters kept me turning pages long past my usual bedtime.

I have by now read at least a couple dozen books to come out of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but this one is unique. It's not just the usual coming-of-age, baptism-of-fire narrative you usually see in these books, although there is certainly plenty of that. But Gallagher also skillfully manages to merge that theme show more with such disparate elements as mystery-thriller and urban legend, all with an Iraqi twist.

Gallagher's protagonist-narrator, Army ROTC Lieutenant Jack Porter, at just twenty-four, certainly fits the title - young, untested, new to the war and trying desperately to understand the culture and people of Iraq. And trying to live up to the example set by his older brother, a much decorated Marine officer. As leader of an Army Stryker platoon, he takes his mission seriously, and also feels the awesome responsibility of keeping his men - more 'youngbloods' - alive and whole, a task that is, in reality, nigh impossible in a volatile area like Ashuriyah.

Then along comes SSG Daniel Chambers, a combat-hardened veteran, who poses a challenge to Porter's authority, but also brings with him something far darker: rumors of flagrant violations of the rules of engagement during his previous tours. Tales of murders of innocent civilians swept under the rug. And, most tantalizing of all, a shadowy story of a forbidden love affair between an influential Sheikh's daughter and Chambers's best friend, SGT Elijah Rios. An urban legend had grown up around Rios, aka "Shaba" (Arabic for 'young, vital, beautiful'), who came from a poverty-stricken family in Texas - that he had, 'gone native,' somehow taught himself Arabic, and had intended to stay in Iraq and marry the beautiful Rana. But Rios was mysteriously killed in a night fire fight, his body never recovered. LT Porter, while caught up in the complexities of command and war, and struggling with conflicting feelings toward Chambers and the man's growing influence with the 'youngbloods' of the platoon, searches old records for incriminating information about Chambers, which leads him to a meeting with Rana. And of course he falls in love with her. And oh yeah, he has a price on his head too - a fatwah.

So, no spoilers, but what all have we got here? Finely-wrought, many-sided characters; a war story replete with IEDs, fire fights and snipers, gory deaths and mutilations; tribal betrayals and intrigue; a mystery-suspense thriller; and a love story. All this and more. I see various influences at work here - Hemingway and Heller, maybe some O'Brien and Caputo. But influences aside, with this impressive debut, young Mr. Gallagher has established himself as a unique voice in the literature of war. I will shelve YOUNGBLOOD with the books of his veteran peers, authors like Phil Klay, Benjamin Busch, Jesse Goolsby, Matthew Hefti, Brian Turner, Brian Castner, and others. Very highly recommended. show less

FIRE AND FORGET is an absolutely terrific collection of stories by fifteen exciting new writers, all products of the recent and current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fully a third of the writers have already published their own books. Siobhan Fallon's book of connected stories, YOU KNOW WHEN THE MEN ARE GONE, has alreay garnered much deserved critical acclaim. Her story, "Tips for a Smooth Transition" adds a valuable chapter to her earlier oeuvre of the unavoidable miscommunication, show more disconnect, and struggles with loneliness and infidelity that occur between absent or returning soldiers and their spouses, left behind either alone or with small children.

It's hard to pick a favorite entry here, but I loved Phil Klay's "Redeployment," maybe because of its dialogue of authentic GI language filled with all its political incorrectness which nevertheless brought guilty guffaws from me as I read it. I'd offer an example, but it's too filthy for most of my review venues. And yet the same story, with the narrator's fear of public places and the dilemma of dealing with a dying and beloved dog made me wince in empathy. Jacob Siegel's "Smile, There Are IEDs Everywhere" shows three veterans of widely divergent backgrounds reuniting in New York City for a drunken binge. The difficulties of that "smooth transition" are glaringly displayed in the course of that evening.

In "Play the Game" Colby Buzzell (author of the memoir, MY WAR: KILLING TIME IN IRAQ) offers a chilling portrait of a futureless veteran who is probably suffering from PTSD, living in a transient LA hotel, drifting aimlessly between dead end jobs. Roman Skaskiw's "Television" presents a well-meaning but naive young lieutenant who has yet to learn that war is about more than just the killing portrayed in video games.

Gavin Ford Kovite's story, "When Engaging Targets, Remember," gives us a thinking, college-educated soldier who fears he may think too long about the Rules of Engagement he has been given, thus endangering his own life and those of his fellow combatants. Then there is "The Train," Mariette Kalinowski's story of a female vet who obsessively rides the subways after having watched her best friend killed in front of her by a suicide bomber. Who says there are no women in combat?

"New Me" by Andrew Slater, and Brian Van Reet's "Big Two-Hearted Hunting Creek" both deal with veterans who have been mutilated, traumatized and damaged who are trying to find their places in an apathetic civilian society. "Roll Call," by David Abrams (author of the novel, FOBBIT), is the shortest and yet perhaps one of the most affecting of all the stories in the collection because of its subject: a unit memorial service for a fallen comrade. Like Phil Klay, Abrams has mastered the obscene, often hilarious, jargon of the enlisted man. Perry O'Brien's "Poughkeepsie" gives us the poignant plight of a lonely soldier who has gone AWOL to find a pen-pal who, he learns too late, wants nothing to do with him.

Ted Janis's "Raid" shows most effectively how too many combat tours can burn a man out, while Brian Turner (author of the poetry collection, HERE, BULLET) offers a dream-like look at a patrol lost in seemingly endless desert dunes in "The Wave that Takes Them Under."

The final two pieces in the book are by its two main editors. Matt Gallagher (author of the memoir, KABOOM), in "And Bugs Don't Bleed" paints an effective mini-portrait of a burned-out, deeply damaged vet, faithless women and greedy, predatory civilians who claim to support the troops. But as one character says, those troops "have been completely abandoned by the rest of the country." Roy Scranton's "Red Steel India" (an excerpt from his as yet unpublished novel, WAR PORN) shows the boredom and monotony of perimeter guard duty and the distrust and petty cruelties the soldiers show toward their Iraqi counterparts. (The tone of Scranton's story brought to mind Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya's fine novel of the Afghanistan war, THE WATCH.)

I know I can't even begin to do justice to the excellence and variety of the veterans' experiences brought together between the covers of FIRE AND FORGET. So I'll just say this. There is not a clinker in the bunch. Every story deserves its place in this landmark collection. I will remember these names and will be watching for them. show less

Matt Gallagher’s Youngblood is not the typical war novel spawned by America’s twentieth century wars. Those typically followed the exploits of a group of American soldiers as they fought their way across enemy territory, all the while taking casualties among the characters dearest to the reader’s heart, until a final victory could be claimed. America doesn’t fight that kind of war anymore, and this is not that kind of novel. Gallagher’s war takes place in Iraq, one of those show more countries in which the war is easier to win than the peace. Gallagher, himself a veteran of the Iraq war, has much to say about what that war was like – and luckily for the rest of us he is such a fine writer/novelist that we can learn much from what he shares with us.

Lieutenant Jack Porter has been in the country long enough to feel frustrated by his mission and to begin doubting that he has the leadership skills called for by his role. Porter, though, continues to lead daily patrols in search of the hit-and-run Iraqi insurgents who are so good at blending in with Ashuriyah’s civilian population. The U.S. will soon be withdrawing from Iraq, in effect abandoning it to the very people the country has been fighting, and everyone knows it, including the enemy. Now Porter’s personal mission is simply to save as many of the lives of his men as possible. Unfortunately, snipers and those placing explosive devices in the paths of his patrols have the opposite mission: killing as many Americans as they can before the troops leave Iraq.

Porter’s self-doubts reach a crisis stage when Sergeant Daniel Chambers, an aggressive veteran of several previous tours in Iraq, transfers into his unit. Chambers is not the kind of soldier who much worries about what any commanding officer thinks of him or his methods, and without consulting Porter, he begins to train the men to fight the war more aggressively than their lieutenant has allowed them to fight it beforehand. Porter, not wanting to directly challenge his new sergeant, instead starts looking for excuses to transfer Chambers out of his unit.

Porter’s search for dirt on Chambers is the skeleton around which the author frames the rest of the novel. At times, in fact, Youngblood reads more like a detective story than it does a war novel because when Porter hears rumors that Chambers may be guilty of past war crimes against Iraqi civilians, he begins digging into file archives, interviewing potential crime witnesses, and searching for soldiers who served under Chambers during his previous tours. What he learns will have repercussions for Porter, Chambers, the men they command, and the Iraqi woman with whom Porter falls in love.

Matt Gallagher’s talent for recreating the atmosphere of a chaotic war-torn country like Iraq makes Youngblood a memorable novel. He vividly portrays the mad dance for survival that the Iraqi population is involved in because of the multiple, simultaneous wars being fought in their country. At the same time that Americans are fighting Iraqi insurgents, Iraqis are fighting other Iraqis. A crossfire is a crossfire, and bombs don’t discriminate between their victims, meaning that women and children are no safer in their homes than men in the streets using automatic weapons and bombs to kill each other are.

Anyone wanting to learn what fighting an unwinnable war feels like would do well to begin with a novel like Matt Gallagher’s Youngblood. show less