Excerpt from Youngblood by Matt Gallagher, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Too nice to these little fuckers," he said, exposing a tobacco-stained overbite. There was a hard edge to his voice. This wasn't a joke—it was criticism.

Half the patrol started studying packed dirt, while the others turned to me. I needed to say something. I was the platoon leader. He was an interloper, a fucking new guy who wasn't supposed to be doing anything but watching and learning. So I shrugged and said, "It's not 2007 anymore. Things have changed. We're withdrawing soon."

"Right." He didn't sound convinced. "While you and the English-speaking hajj handle business, I'm going to show the guys how to pull security."

I nodded slightly and considered my options. Some noncoms couldn't help but test their leadership, and it seemed I now had one of those. My brother would say I needed to regulate. All in good time, I reasoned. There was no reason to crush a guy for having baggage from his last tour. I watched a pair of stray dogs along a ridgeline to the east. They were teasing a spotted goat with big pink balls that wanted nothing to do with them. I felt bad for the thing, but we hadn't been sent to Iraq to save goats.

Snoop tugged my sleeve to bring my attention back to foosball. Two teenagers built like cord had lined up across the table. The bar of our goalie proved sticky, but one of their strikers had been sawed in half somehow, so it evened out. "They ask how old you are," Snoop translated. "They say you look too young to be a molazim."

It wasn't the first time I'd heard that. "Twenty-four," I said, trying to keep my voice flat. "Old enough."

Sweat rolled down my face and onto the table, dripping like dirty rain. It was too hot to be wearing anything other than a tee shirt. The teens suggested Snoop and I take off our gear. They thought American soldiers were crazy for wearing body armor outside. I grunted and took off my gloves to better grip the handles.

During the game, I listened to soldiers pelt Chambers with questions about firefights on his previous deployments, his Ranger tab, and what he meant by "exposed silhouettes." Hog's voice especially carried from across the dirt road, which bothered me.

"Sergeant?" he asked. "I heard, uh, you got tattoos for every enemy you've killed?"

Chambers pulled up the sleeve on his right arm, though I couldn't see what he was showing. The soldiers, now spread out in pairs and kneeling behind cars or peeking around building corners, all turned his way.

"Don't look at me, oxygen thieves," Chambers said, his voice stinging with authority. "Eyes out."

"Fuck this," I said, after giving up another goal that I blamed on the stuck goalie. I'd been to Ranger School, too. I had my tab. Why didn't they ever ask me about it? Because infantry officers have guaranteed slots, I thought. We don't have to fight to get in like the enlisted. "Snoop, call over the Barbie Kid. Let's get some work done."

I could tell the terp was annoyed by the way the game had ended, but he did as instructed. The Barbie Kid, all ninety pounds of him, moved to us with bare feet covered in dust, rolling a cooler of goods behind him. A dark unibrow raced across his forehead, and he stank like a polecat, wearing his usual pink sweats. The Barbie doll's face on the sweatshirt was smudged with mud and crust, forever spoiling her smile.

"Any ali babas around?" I asked.

The Barbie Kid looked up at me with his good eye, the lazy one staying fixed to the ground. "None the Americans would care about," he said through Snoop, his voice cracking but tart.

Fucking teenagers, I thought. They're all terrible. Even here.

I reached down and lifted the Barbie Kid's sweatshirt to reveal the handle of a long, dull sai dagger tucked into his waistband.

Excerpted from Youngblood by Matt Gallagher. Copyright © 2016 by Matt Gallagher. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.