Horsefeathers - JARHEAD: THE BOOK & MOVIE

Search

November 13, 2005

JARHEAD: THE BOOK & MOVIE

JARHEAD: THE BOOK

Anthony Swofford’s 2003 book “Jarhead” is not about the Gulf War or the Marine Corps, it is about Anthony Swofford’s fucked up head, as he would say, and his attempt to cure himself by joining the Marine Corps and then writing a book about it mostly blaming the Marine Corps for being a fucked up institution and fucking him and other fucked up young men up. Sometimes he was more fucked up, sometimes less—but, at any given time, it’s hard to tell which. He was about 18 when he joined the Marine Corps, and about 22 when he left the Corps and began his alcoholic, hippie-like wanderings. Eventually he got himself a college degree, took up writing, and got himself into the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.

Eight and a half years out of the Marines he started to write “Jarhead.” At that time he wrote, “…no I am not mad. I am not well, but I am not mad…. As a lance corporal in a U.S. Marine Corps scout/sniper platoon, I saw more of the Gulf war than the average grunt. Still my vision was blurred—by wind and sand and distance…by stupidity and fear and ignorance, by valor and false pride….Thus what follows is neither true nor false but what I know.”

This explains why—this “blurred vision,” his metaphorical euphemism for being fucked up and seeing the world through his fucked up mind—so many former marines find “Jarhead” distant from their own Marine Corps experience. Two or three examples posted on Amazon will suffice:

B.D. TUCKER (ANNAPOLIS, MD):

As a Marine, a vet of the Gulf War, and a former infantry platoon commander with 1st Bn, 6th Marines (1/6), I lived in the Triangle area of the E. Province of Saudi Arabia, not too far from where Swofford's unit, 2/7, was originally located.

In struggling through the haphazard writing style in this book of purported non-fiction, I found Swofford's storyline problematic for a variety of reasons: poor research that is exhibited by his references to dates, locations, and events that at a minimum are inaccurate or did not occur when he says they did; a pervasively cynical attitude exhibited by the rank and file that I know exists, but that he asserts is rarely mitigated by infantry Marines displaying courage and integrity; the total absence of company and field grade officers who are respected by the rank and file and who are competent; the sheer incompetence of his battalion commander and the ignorance of the battalion staff; a questionable characterization of scout snipers roaming the desert during the ground combat phase of the Gulf War(I can't vouch for 2/7 or TF Grizzly, but at no time while I was ashore did our battalion or our regiment employ STA Marines in the manner that Swofford's unit does in the book); the almost complete breakdown in tactical discipline on the third day of the ground war by a rifle company of Marines in Swofford's battalion; and the near complete absence of positive leadership from Marine Staff COs and NCOs, save SSgt Sieck.

Throughout the book, Swofford careens from a crazed post adolescent desire to kill somebody in order to prove his mettle to a disprited and despondent pseudo-victim of the horrors of war, the worst of which he never sees or experiences, except in his unfulfilled fantasies. He says at the beginning that this story is "what I know", not what he remembers or how he remembers it. One is led to believe that what Swofford recounts actually happened. The further I read, the more convinced I was that Swofford was either shoveling a few loads of b.s for the liberal reviewers with no military experience who found this book so appealing as the voice of the common grunt, or that he actually believed the stuff he was writing about happened the way he said it did.

Throughout the book there are numerous passages of almost sublime writing that I wished would prevail over the abject negativity and darkness of this book. Although some of his descriptions were strained and confusing, he is a gifted writer, yet this book does not showcase his writing on a level of acclaim that supports the opinion of the majority of civilian reviewers. I respect Mark Bowden and many others who found Jarhead compelling, but hardly any of them ever served a day in uniform and do not bring that military perspective to the discussion.

I have never walked in Anthony Swofford's boots as a STA Marine in 2/7, but I have humped a ruck many klicks in the Arabian desert with some of the finest infantry Marines who I had the pleasure and privilege to lead, and not even the most cynical Marine among them ever came close to displaying the brooding selfishness and self loathing that Swofford exhibits in his book. He is, as he says, free to write what he wants about that war, its politics, and the Corps, warts and all, but he does not do the Corps, his fellow Marines, and especially himself any service by disparaging so many of them and depicting them as unintelligent stereotypes in this rant called Jarhead.

(I might add that I can count on one hand the number of times in my 13 year career that I have heard a fellow Marine, especially an enlisted Marine, refer to another as a "jarhead" and I have lived in a fighting hole within feet of my Marines….)

SGT. B. IVERS (FT. COLLINS, CO):

I roomed with Tony for a year or so. I was not with him in STA platoon during the Gulf war, I was there with G 2/7 2nd Platoon. I hooked up with STA 2/7 after the war. Tony is a nice enough guy and even then he had ambitions of becoming a teacher. Tony had fun off duty,he loved playing sports, drinking and finding girls to chase….. I read this book in Iraq in 2003. I remembered a lot about Tony. This book is about him and his view of what happened during his time in the Corp. I agree with many other reviewers that a lot is hyped and some stuff was fabricated. I can say that a lot of what he talks about happened but not perhaps as he remembered it.

Tony was not a school trained sniper. He spent very little time with a line company before testing and making STA platoon. The discipline problems in the platoon, when I got there in late 91 were serious…. We did have issues with morale in 2/7 during the Gulf War as over 80% of the battalion had just got out of boot camp, it was a real problem. But for every issue in that Battalion there were answers in the NCO leadership and people stepping up to the plate to get the job done. The whining in the book is excessive, and Tony had a tendency then, to do that.

The book is less about combat than it is about a young man trying to find himself, and this included the embellishments with it. To put this thing in perspective the gulf war was nothing compared to the 24/7 combat operations that are going on in Iraq and Afganistan now. For every Swofford there is a lot more squared away Marines who really believe in what they are doing, who are bleeding and dying for each other and their country.

The book is a confirmation to all liberals of their world view of the Marine Corp and our countries mission as being flawed. It is a sad work for any Marine who is and remains faithful to God Country and Corp….

The definitive book on the Gulf War awaits its author. This is not it. It was war as he knew it, not as it is, or was. Tony made it where he wanted to be, a professor and writer. He is making money from this thing, with the war going on, a continuation of the 3 day war he never got to fire a round in.

I did not like the book and I can't recommend it. Tony has issues, the book is his liberal agenda.

MARK A. ROCCO (DAYTON, OH):

Sorry to tell you all... but... Anthony Swofford is in need of some serious mental help. I was there, I was a Marine Grunt with India 3/9, Task Force Papa Bear for the first Gulf War. Swofford's novel (if you want to call it that) is soooooooooooooooooooo beyond fiction, tall tales, exaggeration, false bravado, and very likely the only truth from the book is that Swafford was smoking crack cocaine while writing it.

For others that were there, what a disgrace Swofford brings upon us with his book and NOW, someone is funding a movie of this trash.

…. Swofford's book is NOT about the psychology of men in combat. I'd say it's more about a man who needed help, and still needs help. One thing is for sure, Swofford would have never made it 60 days in MY Marine Corps as we would have identified him as unstable and untrustworthy right off the bat. Last, if he would have EVER pointed a weapon at me for any reason, I would have killed him before the sun went down that day. Does that sound tough? Macho? No one points weapons at other Marines and nothing happens about it. Of course for Super Marine, Anthony Swofford....... the guy who busts up bars and never gets charged, who can run all night till the sun comes up, who likes to french kiss the muzzle of his M16, chew/suck on bullets and cry about every 8 hours….

….Swofford doesn't just "get things mixed up." It's understandable to mix dates up, who was there and who wasn't, the name of a bar or the name of a town. We all do that due to memory and time gone by. This is to be expected and no foul called. BUT... Swofford's errors are calculated falsehoods. All veterans absolutely HATE the blowhard sitting at the bar telling embellished war stories (guess why kerry lost this election). Swofford is exactly to us what kerry was to the SwiftBoat Veterans. Just like the SwiftBoat Veterans, we just want the truth to be told. What I've listed above in my page by page tearing of his book is mostly stuff that we (Marines) know to be HUGE tall tales and BS. This stuff IS NOT stuff that gets mixed up in memory over time but stuff that someone has to intentionally create. The theme to all of this BS is absolutely someone puffing his chest out and playing hardass retard.

NOW.... I'm going to throw Swofford a bone as it's only fair. First, Swofford DOES accurately capture the drinking, whoring and brotherhood that the Marine Corps truly is. Most of us would agree with that no questions asked….

….Swofford may be a good writer, but his book could have been tweaked in many ways. The bottom line is that a large portion of the book is embellishment and it VERY MUCH turns off those of us that were there. There are enough TRUE stories and incidents from that era of the Corps and Desert Storm to write 100 books and make 10 movies but it's sad that Swofford's stuff may end up being the definitive reference of it all.

“Thus what follows is neither true nor false but what I know.” This disavowal of historical truth, as Horsefeathers hears it, is not an act of humility, a way of explaining one’s limitations. It is the proud expression of the transcendent artist who cannot be bothered worrying about mere historical truth when he can supply a higher, poetic truth. In fact both Swofford’s enlistment into the Marines and the writing of his “memoir” were attempts at self-cure and self-justification. And “Jarhead,” the ten year product of this process, still bears the stigmata of its origin.

Jarhead is a term that is essentially derived from the high, tight haircut that new enlistees get when they are inducted into the Marines. But the word has a special meaning for Swofford. It means misfit, fuck-up, loser, failure—any or all of the above. And in his narrative he makes clear, without real self-knowledge, that he was a jarhead long before he ever got to the Marines. In fact that was why he was eventually drawn unconsciously to the life of the grunt.

When he was seventeen he wanted to sign up for the Corps but his father refused to allow him to at that age. “My father knocked on my door….I tried to look angry rather than sad. ‘As soon as you can sign that contract on your own [17 ½], go ahead. Until then, I’m responsible for you. I’m not stronger than you, but I know some things about the military that they don’t show you in the brochures.’”

“I wept. What would I do with myself? I'd already, in my heart, signed the contract and accepted the warrior lifestyle. I wanted to be a killer, to kill my country's enemies. Now I'd have to take the SATs and visit colleges, I'd have to find a part-time job. I'd never live abroad and chase prostitutes through the world's brothels, or Communists through the world's jungles. I needed the Marine Corps now, I needed the Marine Corps to save me from the other life I'd fail at—the life of the college boy hoping to find a girl¬friend and later a job.”

Growing up he was too close and too attached to his mother, a chronically depressed woman who grieved her life away mourning for Swofford’s psychotically suicidal and institutionalized sister. By the time he was twelve he was full of fears and a misfit even at Boy Scout camp. “¬Before joining the Marine Corps I'd fired two weapons—a bow and arrow and a .22-caliber rifle, both at Boy Scout camp, at the age of twelve. If I hadn't requested to leave camp a week early, I would've also fired a shotgun and a larger-caliber rifle, but I missed my mother, had no friends at camp, the food was lousy, I was afraid of showering in public—actually, in the forest, the shower not a shower but half a dozen garden hoses draped over the lowest branches of a pine—and the leader of the camp was grouchy and probably a drunk. Because I cried-out a week early, and my parents lost the nonrefundable fee, I had to repay the money for the aborted second week. My mother supported me and my sweet rea¬soning behind quitting camp (that I missed her), but my father insisted I repay the money—my Boy Scout camp fees came from general family vacation funds, and to be fair to the rest of the family, members of the tribe who stayed the duration of their camps of choice, I had to reimburse my parents for the lost week. I don’t remember if I ever repaid this money, but I did miss the larger weapons, and for many years I felt inferior for never having fired a shotgun or large caliber rifle.”

His view of the Corps was no different from his jaundiced view of the pre-Jarhead world, only more concentrated: “I hated the Marines and I hated being a marine. I wore earrings while on leave and liberty, grew sideburns, hung out with gay navy guys who knew the best straight clubs anywhere—jarhead free clubs….”

His early roommates, Bottoms and Frontier “…were drunks and not the simple drunks who are concerned only with their own drunkenness, their own sad stupor, but social drunks, the poor bastards who feel it is their duty to fill every mouth in the house with drink. So nightly they filled me up….I was happy to drink with Frontier and Bottoms…[who were] dedicated to debasing the stan¬dards and policies of the institution… I enjoyed hearing their manifestos against the Corps, the Suck, as they called it, ‘… because it sucks the life out of you.’ After spending time around Frontier and Bottoms, I realized the grunt holds the Spiritual High Ground because he creates it; through constant bitching and inebriation he creates his own Grunt island, and the poor, sad, angry grunt on the outside is actually a happy and contented grunt on the inside, because he has been heard, someone understands his misery: through profanity and disgrace he has communicated the truth of his being….The constant clatter of the discarded liquor bottles and the cackles and howls from my roommates helped me forget that I'd made a mistake by joining the Corps.”

But he needed the Corps, the way an orphan of the storm needs a home: “I'd always worried about losing my home and running out of everything—out of love, money, food, shelter, and transportation. As a teenager I often suffered anxious daydreams of becoming homeless, out of a job, unskilled and unloved. I pictured myself on street corners, in the rain, with a filthy dog I couldn't afford to feed…. Obviously, these weren't the only reasons for my fear of homelessness:
my family was disintegrating because of my father's disinterest and infidelity, and I projected his emo¬tional distance many years further into my own life, when I too would become a lonely and despondent man.

“I joined the Marine Corps in part to impose domestic structure upon my life, to find a home…. The simple domesticity of the Marine Corps is seductive and dangerous. Some men claim to love the Corps more than they love their own mother or wife or children—this is because lov¬ing the Corps is uncomplicated. The Corps always waits up for you. The Corps forgives your drunken¬ness and stupidity. The Corps encourages your bru¬tality.”

And eventually, on his stumbling march to health he gains some degree of pride and maturity by learning the art of the scout/sniper, being able to deliver “a dime at a grand.” That is, the ability to shoot three shots at a target a thousand yards away so close together that they can be covered by a dime. A difficult and enviable skill to acquire.

Swofford leaves us in the dark about how he became a published writer. It is clear that he was able to outgrow some of his Jarheadedness, his anti-authoritarian rage, so that he could learn to write a publishable memoir/novel. And what better subject than turning his Marine experience into a copycat Viet Nam novel as though that were the real source of his rage and fears, perhaps another “The Things They Carried,” or “A Rumor of War.” Or better yet make it so bitter and full of “Fucking this and fucking that” and antinomianism that it can become another “Apocalypse Now,” or “Platoon.” And what better sources for gripping prose than the scene in which he puts the rifle barrel in his mouth ready to blow his brains out in desperation. Or the scene in which he is ready to blow the brains out of one of the members of his platoon. The only witness to either of these scenes is his long-dead best friend. (The friend did not die because of the war but because of drunk driving after leaving the Marines.)

There is much that is amateurish about the writing. You hear undigested bits of Hemingway, Kerouac, the plaintive voices of Holden Caulfield and Alex Portnoy, and even the Dostoyevskian sinner anti-hero. And there is much that is pretentious in the book, Swofford’s need to demonstrate to the reader that he is not really a retard by constantly referring to his intellectual preferences—Camus rather than porno magazines, or “The Iliad” rather than comic books, or “The Myth of Sysiphus,” or “The Works of Nietsche.”All of these he lugs over the Arabian desert to prove his intellectual manhood.

If only he could have stopped playing pretend Viet Nam and anti-war and allowed himself to see the comic aspects of the Gulf War, a war defined by Iraqi ineptitude and American overkill, a war in which he and his comrades killed no one, were never in danger, and were never injured, he could have written a painfully funny and true story. In fact he is quite good at the comedy of quotidian frustrations and stupidities of military life—his shitter detail, his running war with his dog-tags, his assignment as the Catholic lay reader of his outfit. He has a sharp eye for absurdity and a good ear for the comic if only he could get past his bitterness and pretensions.

JARHEAD: THE MOVIE

Reviewed by DI Sgt. A. Parody

This movie is one long piece of shit. It is made by fags, shitbags and possibly communists for morons. If you go to see this movie and you’re an American over fourteen, you’ll probably puke.

The whole point of the fucking movie is to show that marines are fuckheads, retards and killers who would kill anyfuckingbody. That they’re all fucking Calleys like at My Lai. This shitbucket of Hollywood fags has this idea about warriors, that they have no goddamn sense, and no fucking conscience. So they make this fucking movie where every marine fuckface can’t do anything but get drunk or think about fucking whores and shooting dead fucking shithead Iraqis.

So there’s this fucking retard hero, some jerkoff named Gyllenhaal who’s supposed to be Swofford. Now everybody in the Corps knows that Tony Swofford was mostly out of his fucking mind while he was in the Gulf. But not in this piece of shit movie. You see everything through his fucking eyes and he’s supposed to be sane, so you get the goddamn idea that what he sees is true. Now how is that for a puke-making idea. There is more shit in this movie than there is in a fucking cow pasture.

There are no goddamn officers shown who know what they’re fucking doing, so you get the idea that the fucking flies have taken over the fucking flypaper. It’s a fucking circus and there’s nobody in fucking command.

Not only that, these Hollywood buttfucking commies make up things that aren’t even in the goddamn book—forced hot branding, burning the flesh of fellow marine fucks.

Then they show, these fucks, an entire platoon going crazy during combat operations.

One crazy fuckhead threatening to kill another marine at point blank range with a loaded M16 in a rage, and then turning the weapon on himself and asking to be killed.

And stupidest of all there is a nonstop use of the "F" word throughout the whole fucking movie.

Don’t bother seeing this piece of shit.

Email This Entry

Comments

Yale I am surprised that you used the F word so often but it just goes to prove any one can use that word. There can be no doubt, however, that you are right that JARHEAD was F#%^&* up. Actually the comments by Marines on Amazon was amusing and right on. That is what most Marines would think. They know a scoundrel and a backstabber when they see one. And of course the movie added 'gang elements' like the branding.
Perhaps someone can correct me but I was in boot camp in 1975 and 1976 and no live ammunition was used in training exercises like the Day Movement Course. They used blanks and smoke grenades. The only time we used live ammunition or grenades was on the firing line. Live ammunition with machine guns fixed WAS used in WWII (my father and uncle told me this) and in the Korean War era but as far as I know this was phased out sometime during the Vietnam War. When I served I knew SOME Marines veterans who said they had experienced it in the 50's and early 60's but it was no longer used as it was considered too dangerous.
As I said I could be wrong, policies could change and vary from place to place but I think that part of the film was just inaccurate.

SO SKIP JARHEAD aka "McCellan goes to war" (builds up and does nothing) aka “Airhead Marine from dysfunctional family and dysfunctional, corrupt, venial and unattractive American society goes to war, jerks off, gets drunk, cleans latrines and jerks off”

TWO STARS or less.

By comparison CLEOPATRA or Barry LYNDON are the greatest movies ever made. At least THEY were entertaining and had some action and romance.

Cleopatra was the Virgin Mary compared to the women in this film (except for one Hispanic wife)

I think Bin Laden would LIKE this movie.

According to this film American women are (mostly) unfaithful, shallow, sluts and whores.

In the film one wife sends a video to her husband called DEERHUNTER in which she shows herself fornicating adulterously and lewdly to the shame of the Marine. Good argument for honor killing an Arab fundamentalist might think.

According to this anti-American movie which I will never buy (CAN YOU HEAR ME HOLLYWOOD)U.S. Marines are at best amoral mercenaries and at worst virtually criminal gangsters capable of any atrocity such as threatening to blow the heads off of their comrades.

There is some realism in this movie and believable moments in the training but this was a big disappointment for me.
\Jarhead is ambivalent movie obviously made for the world market. Like FULL METAL Jacket (a much better film) and A FEW GOOD MEN this film is basically nihilistic, anti-military and anti-American.

If that were truly American society and the Marines then we should be destroyed to the last root and branch and effaced from the planet. (of course I know we aren’t; we are an imperfect country but a damn good one)

One good thing is that the movie pretends Israel and the Jews don’t exist but neither does Islamo-fascism.

The book was OK –it was an OK read but not worth buying- but the movie very mediocre and shallow.

DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME or money.

If this is a big hit I will be a monkey’s uncle. I predict it won't have "legs".

THE GREAT RAID I enjoyed 100 times more and BAND OF BROTHERS as well.

We need some propaganda movies to make us look good and to build up morale….if not the legions will become depleted and yield at the next ADRIANOPLE or MANZIKERT....

PRAISE THE LORD (not JARHEADO) and PASS THE AMMUNITION.

WE are going to need plenty of both.

Posted by: Richard "Ricardo" Munro at November 14, 2005 03:49 AM