Set in modern-day Afghanistan, it is told through the point of view of Aziz, a young boy who must join the "Special Lashkar" – a U.S. funded militia – in order to save his injured brother.

Dr. Truman Anderson has called Green on Blue a "morally complex debut novel" for how Ackerman explores the themes of loyalty to family and nation, revenge, and the brutality of war throughout the novel.

Local militants and warlords strike back against the Americans, and a bomb explodes in the market in which Ali works, leaving him critically injured.

This man recruits Aziz to the U.S.-funded militia called the "Special Lashkar" because the wages from soldiering will allow Ali to stay in the hospital and receive the medical care he needs.

[2] Due to his sense of badal, Aziz feels compelled to take revenge on the warlord responsible for the bombing that injured his brother, as this is the only way that he can restore nang.

In her article for Vogue, Megan O'Grady writes: "[Ackerman's] first novel is a standout both for its setting—remote Shkin firebase, a kind of twenty-first century Guadalcanal—and for the austere grace of its prose.

"[6] In The Dallas Morning News, Chris Vognar described Green on Blue and Phil Klay's Redeployment as "carrying the sting of authenticity and the sensory expression of experiences lived.