Marines sound off on ‘Jarhead’

[thedrifter]

November 21, 2005
Marines sound off on ‘Jarhead’
By C. Mark Brinkley
Times staff writer

So what do today’s Marines think of this film depiction of the 1991 Persian Gulf War — a conflict that took place when most of them were in elementary school?

We asked a few leathernecks at Camp Lejeune, N.C., for their take on “Jarhead.” Here’s what they had to say:

• Cpl. Joshua Rodriguez, 25, read the book upon which the movie is based.

“It was a good movie. I was expecting a little more content, but it stood up with the book.”

• Lance Cpl. Marc Walsh, 20, read the book.

“I thought it was awesome. It definitely shows how Marines act.”

• Sgt. Paul Evans, 26, has not read the book.

“It was a good portrayal of the Marines. It showed the way we act, the way things are.”

• Cpl. Jared Strong, 24, is reading the book now.

“It’s a good movie. A lot of the stuff in there is still the same, especially field side. Things haven’t changed much.”

• Sgt. Shawn J. Maichle, 21, has not read the book.

“It was a good movie, but I expected a little more. It was a perfect portrayal of Marines.”

• Cpl. Jason Burge, 21, has not read the book.

“It was a good movie. The beginning and the boot camp stuff really related to boot camp. Now that I’ve seen the movie, I’ll definitely read the book.”

• Sgt. Dempsey Lloyd, 21, has not read the book.

“I liked Jamie Foxx, and I think he’s a good actor and whatever. But I don’t think it’s a good story line. It didn’t let me see a side of the Marine Corps like everyone is saying. ... That movie let everyone see the Marines in a negative manner. All Marines are not like that.”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Jarhead still gets it wrong
Doug Hanson 11-15-05

I had previously criticized Jonathan Last’s positive review of the Sam Mendes film Jarhead based on Last’s assertion that the movie “got it right” on the Marines and the Gulf War. Apparently, it never occurred to Last that one disillusioned Marine’s experiences do not necessarily reflect the reality of the Corps, and a complex war that contrary to popular belief, lasted weeks, not 100 hours.

A column in today’s Rocky Mountain News confirms my misgivings about Last’s review. Tom Neven, who served seven years as a Marine Corps infantryman, provides a much-needed counterpoint to another in a long line of Hollywood’s propaganda pieces. On Swofford’s book, Neven says that it,

…is a silly political manifesto, too, asserting that the Gulf War was fought to protect “the profits of companies, many of which have direct ties to the White House.” Most egregious, though, Swofford relates an incident in which he threatened a comrade with a loaded weapon, twisting the rifle barrel into the man’s ear until he broke down in tears. Swofford deserves to be court-martialed for that.

As far as the movie is concerned, Neven says:

I served in three different infantry units over seven years in the Marine Corps, and I never encountered a unit remotely as dysfunctional or undisciplined as the platoon portrayed in this film. Sure, many Marines curse a blue streak, and some are obsessed with sex. And Mendes (with the help of unofficial Marine advisers) gets little details right, such as the way Marines talk or carry their weapons. But the overall image is a deeply dishonest lie because it relies on a misfit like Swofford for its basic story. It’s unfortunate, too, that many people have gotten their impression of Marines from Swofford’s book or will now do so through this movie.

Just because a movie has no overt anti-Americanism or anti-Bush tirade, doesn’t mean we should rush to the theater in gleeful anticipation of Hollywood finally converting from the dark side; even if a conservative journal blesses the film.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

November 15, 2005, 8:22 a.m.
Major Chip on His Shoulder
Jarhead is war through the eyes of a self-absorbed sniper.

By Maj. Brooks Tucker

There is a telling moment during Jarhead when its main character, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, hears an American helicopter blaring a Sixties pop song as it flies overhead into battle. He turns to his Marine sniping partner, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), and quips, "That's from Vietnam, can't we get our own music for this war?" It seems screenwriter William Broyles Jr., himself a former Marine and Vietnam vet, and Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty, can't steer clear of subtle linkages and comparisons between Vietnam and our past and current war with Iraq. During the pre-combat phase of the movie, which is the first two thirds of the flick, the Marines in Jarhead fantasize about combat by watching Apocalypse Now and The Deerhunter. Marines in the early Nineties no doubt looked to Vietnam as the last big war, but they were more likely to find motivation from active duty vets who'd fought in Beirut and Panama, not from the Hollywood screen. The same could be said of curious moviegoers looking to the Hollywood Jarhead for a realistic and compelling account of the common grunt's experience during the Persian Gulf War.

Gyllenhaal is cast as Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, the author of a best-selling book the movie is based on. The ever-cynical "Swoff," is a well-balanced Marine only in the sense that he has a chip on each shoulder. During the opening scene, Recruit Swofford tells off his Marine Drill Instructor by yelling that Swofford joined the Corps because he "got lost on the way to college." This line underscores the Vietnam-era myth and the current liberal riff that enlisted men are demographic underachievers for whom the military is the only option. Gyllenhaal's "Swoff" initially appears to be the only exception in a cast of stereotypes. Swoff peruses Camus's The Stranger while sitting on a toilet in the barracks, but consistently engages in immature behavior. Gyllenhaal is convincing as the brooding main character who struggles to come to terms with an admittedly poor decision to join the Marines, wallows in self-pity about his girlfriend back home, and wets his trousers when he first comes under fire. There are some brief moments of intensity when "Swoff" snaps from the desert heat and the endless battle drills, threatens to shoot a squad mate, then pleads with the fellow to shoot him just to "end the waiting". If only the moviegoer had it that easy. Swoff's drunkenness while shirking guard duty results in disciplinary action from his leader, the ever steady and seasoned Staff Sergeant Sieck, played forcefully and truthfully by Jamie Foxx. Both Foxx and Sarsgaard, Marine non-commissioned officers who believe passionately in the Corps mission, are the steadying personalities that genuinely outshine Gyllenhaal's depressing Swoff. They are believable bright spots in an otherwise dark movie, but even they are eventually caught up in the script's attempt to expose everything that Swofford, the disaffected author, found unfair about his Marine Corps experience and unfulfilling about the war.

Broyles and Mendes use repetitive cinematic allusions to the oil that these American Marines are fighting for and protecting, first by placing signs over the reception tents at the Saudi airport that say "Oil," inserting a snide comment from a Texas Marine who claims the White House's connection to corporate oil interests back home are orchestrating the operation purely for personal gain, and just to make sure we don't forget about that pesky oil, during the fleeting combat, there are scenes of an oily downpour, oil-drenched Marines, and Gyllenhaal's chance encounter with a petroleum soaked horse on the battlefield. These images are obviously there for dramatic and political effect, but couldn't they have at least found a camel?

After three days searching on foot for an Iraqi to kill and finding nothing but human charcoal, Swoff and Troy are sent out on a sensitive mission, but inexplicably left behind by their unit. In order to rejoin the battalion, they must cross a desert of magnificent dunes more likely seen in the Sahara, than in the southern approach to Kuwait City. They eventually find their fellow Marines in the middle of the desert, engaging in a nocturnal, orgiastic celebration of the war's end, complete with cans of forbidden Budweiser, rap music, and wild gunfire. All that's missing is the strippers. Even the always-disciplined Staff Sergeant Sieck seems to have lost his military bearing. And so too has the movie, but that was hours ago. As the final minutes tick by, Broyles offers up a "Where are they now?" series of silent vignettes, while Gyllenhaal's monotone narrative tries to sum up the frustration of our first war in the Middle East when Swoff harkens back to the day and alludes to the war in Iraq by saying "We are still in the desert."

Hollywood's latest portrayal of the Gulf War, as seen through the eyes of a self-absorbed sniper, Jarhead is an unsatisfying series of clichés that gives the American public a narrow and cynical perspective on the human element in modern warfare.

— Brooks Tucker served as a Marine infantry-unit leader in the Persian Gulf War and is the author of Breach, the first novel about combat Marines in that war. He is a major in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Ellie