Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Stories by Anthony Swofford Published by Scribner, Simon & Schuster on February 25, 2003
Genres: Non-Fiction / Biography & Autobiography
Pages: 259
Format: Paperback
Source: Personal Copy
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Anthony Swofford's "Jarhead" is the first Gulf War memoir by a frontline infantry marine, and it is a searing, unforgettable narrative.When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker.
Swofford weaves this experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. As engagement with the Iraqis draws closer, he is forced to consider what it is to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man.
Unlike the real-time print and television coverage of the Gulf War, which was highly scripted by the Pentagon, Swofford's account subverts the conventional wisdom that U.S. military interventions are now merely surgical insertions of superior forces that result in few American casualties. "Jarhead" insists we remember the Americans who are in fact wounded or killed, the fields of smoking enemy corpses left behind, and the continuing difficulty that American soldiers have re-entering civilian life.
A harrowing yet inspiring portrait of a tormented consciousness struggling for inner peace, "Jarhead" will elbow for room on that short shelf of American war classics that includes Philip Caputo's "A Rumor of War" and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," and be admired not only for the raw beauty of its prose but also for the depth of its pained heart.
Review
Marines watching Full Metal Jacket to get pumped up, knowing full well it’s an anti-war film. That’s just one of the beautiful ironies in Jarhead, a Gulf War memoir that reads more like a fever dream than a war story.
Forget heroic battles and flag-waving glory. This is about what really happens when you train young men to kill and then make them wait. And wait. And wait some more. Swofford’s account of life as a Scout Sniper is a masterclass in military absurdity: endless training for combat that mostly never comes, watching the Air Force do all the fun stuff, and dealing with the kind of boredom that makes you question your sanity.
The genius of Jarhead is how it captures the weird reality of modern war. These Marines watch their predecessors’ battles in Vietnam movies while sitting in the Saudi desert, wondering if they’ll ever get their own war stories to tell. Spoiler alert: they do, just not the kind they expected.
Swofford writes like someone who’s both in the story and floating above it, giving us sharp observations one moment and trippy desert hallucinations the next. He’s brutally honest about everything – the mind-numbing routine, the crude humor, the sexual frustration, and the messed-up psychology of it all. It’s not always pretty, but neither is war.
Here’s the thing: Jarhead isn’t really about the Gulf War. It’s about what happens when you prepare for one kind of war and get another. It’s about how modern combat can feel more like a video game for some and an endless waiting game for others. Most of all, it’s about how young soldiers deal with all of this without losing their minds.
If you’re looking for a traditional war story with clear heroes and villains, look elsewhere. But if you want to understand what modern warfare actually feels like – the confusion, the absurdity, and yes, even the dark humor – Jarhead delivers. Just don’t expect to feel comfortable while reading it. That’s kind of the point.
