Tones in War Writing

Matt Gallagher, a soldier turned author, joined the US army in 2005.  He was deployed to Iraq for fifteen months and retired from the military in 2009.  An avid military blogger, he earned a book deal and published his first narrative called Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a SavageLittle War, which describes his time in Iraq and his relationship with his fellow soldiers.  Gallagher’s writing style alone makes the book worth reading.  His blunt and honest tone keeps the reader intrigued, while his heavy description allows us to experience his deployment.  Because Gallagher’s writing is so dense, I found it useful to closely analyze his writing.  He is able to employ many different literary tools and writing styles in two different pieces: Kaboom and an op-ed called “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

Gallagher sets the tone of his memoir Kaboom almost immediately.  In the intrologue, he describes his unit finding the remains of Boss Johnson after he was killed during an IED explosion.  In uncensored language, Gallagher quotes one of his comrades, Staff Sergeant Bulldog:

“Dere’s…well…I don’t really know how to say this, so I’m just gonna say it.  Dere’s a dog at the car dat blew up last night.  And he’s licking at something, all crazylike. Prolly whatever’s left…Yep.  My gunner’s confirmed it.  Da dog be eatin’ Boss Johnson.  Or at least what’s left of him.”

As the opening paragraph of his memoir, Gallagher surprises the reader with a nearly comical account of a US soldier being killed in Iraq.  The intersection between comedy and death in this paragraph is uncomfortable at first, but the reader soon becomes familiar with military jargon and sarcasm as they continue reading.  A book review of Kaboom by the Wallstreet Journal recognizes this surprising use of comedy: “Understanding that comedy best captures the irony of the human condition, Mr. Gallagher pokes fun at himself, his soldiers, and those above him.” 

I can’t help but see glimmers of Tim O’Brien’s writing style in TheThings They Carried shine through in Gallagher’s piece.  The use of sarcasm, irony, and comedy when describing war is consistent between the two books. 

For example, Tim O’Brien writes about his fellow soldier Curt Lemon being killed by a booby-trapped artillery round:

“In the mountains that day, I watched Lemon turn sideways. He laughed and said something to Rat Kiley. Then he took a funny half step, moving from shade into bright sunlight, and the booby-trapped artillery round blew him into a tree. The parts were just hanging there, so Dave Jensen and I were ordered to shinny up and peel him off. I remember the white bone of an arm. I remember pieces of skin and something wet and yellow. The gore was horrible, and stays with me. But what wakes me up twenty years later is Dave Jensen singing "Lemon Tree" as we threw down the parts”. 

Similarly, Gallagher writes about Boss Johnson’s remains hanging from a tree:

“I, myself, had been surprised that I felt no horror when I saw the remnants of the car and of Boss Johnson, even if his larger pieces had already been scooped up by the locals’ pots and pans for burial in the immediate aftermath of the car bombing.  I doubted anyone ever got used to the sight of intense bits hanging like Christmas ornaments from tree branches, but I hadn’t felt compelled to express an emotion of any kind, really.”

In both pieces, we see themes of ironic comedy when describing body parts of fellow comrades hanging from trees, and the lack of emotion when witnessing such an atrocity.  The use of comedy acts as a way to convey the idea that soldiers become so accustomed to gruesome death that a comical description may be an easier way to deal with the reaction.   

In a fairly recent op-ed piece called “Pilgrim’s Progress” Gallagher describes himself as lucky.  Returning from war as relatively healthy, Gallagher writes both about his close friends that were killed in combat, and a friend who killed himself after returning home from battle.  He also describes his own daily issues that he deals with, such as associating the noise of a slamming dumpster lid, to the sound of an exploding IED.  This piece, in a more serious tone, describes the real life problems that soldiers experience both on and off the battlefield. 

Gallagher displays a wide range of writing styles.  He is able to write in comical, ironic tone while describing grim scenes, but is also able to write seriously about PTSD and veterans.  Whichever writing style Gallagher employs, it is a piece worth reading.