'Jarhead' director Mendes examines war's human cost

[thedrifter]

'Jarhead' director Mendes examines war's human cost
By Bob Tourtellotte

He shattered the facade of U.S. suburbia, peered into the soul of a Chicago hitman and in his new movie, "Jarhead," British director Sam Mendes is again examining an American subject -- U.S. Marines fighting in the 1991 Gulf War.

But don't expect the Oscar-winning filmmaker to skewer U.S. policy like Michael Moore's election-year documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" or shine a light on the absurdity of the Gulf War as in David O. Russell's 1999 film "Three Kings."

Mendes, 40, focuses on the fighting men, how they got there and what happened to them after they landed in the vast desert. As he did in 1999's "American Beauty" and 2002's "Road to Perdition," he explores complex thoughts and competing ideals in "Jarhead" which opens on Friday in the United States.

So moviegoers looking for a strong point-of-view on why U.S. soldiers were sent to fight in the Gulf War or, by extension, to the current battlefields in Iraq should search beyond "Jarhead."

"People will come to this movie thinking, 'Please, give me a way of treating this conflict,' and I think it would wrong of me to pretend the movie gave them an answer," he told Reuters. "What it does is make them understand the questions a bit better. What movies can do is humanize it."

Mendes' storytelling wowed audiences in "American Beauty," which earned five Oscars including best film and best director. "Perdition" earned one for Oscar cinematography, and "Jarhead" is among the must-see movies in this year's awards race,

But being considered among the best U.S. films will require good reviews and crowds at box offices, and the jury is out on whether audiences want to see a movie about war when the nation and its allies, including Britain, are in one.

"I'd like to think there's a huge interest out there because it's part of our daily life," Mendes said.

20 AND TROUBLED

"Jarhead" is based on Anthony Swofford's best-selling book about his experience as a 20-year-old marine sniper who was sent to fight in Kuwait and ultimately became conflicted over his role there.

Swofford, portrayed in the film by Jake Gyllenhaal, is as drawn to the targets in the scope of his high-powered rifle as he is to the writings of French thinker Albert Camus.

He is trained to kill and eager for action, but boredom is all that awaits him as U.S. planes pound Iraqis from overhead.

"What the film does that's most important ... is it opens up that world to people who don't know it," said Swofford.

Mendes said Swofford's book surprised him with the details about the soldiers' lives: playing football in chemical suits, putting on demonstrations for television news crews, watching "Apocalypse Now" and cheering the anti-war film.

When troops finally advanced into Kuwait, they found charred bodies, smoke-filled skies and black oil raining down from sabotaged wells. "Weird, surreal images all in this empty space," Mendes called them.

Visual imagery has become a trademark of Mendes' films. His fans will remember the falling rose petals of "Beauty" and the incessant rain in "Perdition."

Mendes captures the Marines' wartime isolation through a film bleaching process that makes colors seem bland and blurs images on the edge of the main action.

UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE

"Jarhead" focuses on U.S. Marines, but the experiences of soldiers at war is universal, Mendes said. British, Spanish or any troops could have been affected in the same way.

Still, "Jarhead" is about everyday Americans, as was "Beauty" and "Perdition," and Mendes is at a loss to explain exactly why his only three movies have touched so deeply on U.S. cultural experience.

He hails from Reading, England, and went to Cambridge University. His career began in the British theater and from 1992 to 2002, he was artistic director for the Donmar Warehouse theater in London.

Mendes was responsible for the revival of "Cabaret," which updated the 1970s musical about pre-World War Two Berlin for 1990s audiences. "Cabaret" won four Tony Awards, Broadway's equivalent of the Oscars, and for Mendes it captured the eyes of Hollywood.

"Jarhead" is the director's first film after taking 2-1/2 years off during which he married and had a child with his wife, actress Kate Winslet.

"I wanted to stop. I felt a bit barren. I was working because that's what I did, as opposed to being passionate about what I was doing," Mendes said. But the passion has come back, and "Jarhead" is the result.

Ellie

Mark and I will be going to see this movie...

[thedrifter]

War is the workplace in 'Jarhead'
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Sam Mendes has spent his Hollywood career looking at how men approach their work.
On the job: Jake Gyllenhaal plays Anthony Swofford, a third-generation enlistee who quickly comes to regret his decision to join the military. On the job: Jake Gyllenhaal plays Anthony Swofford, a third-generation enlistee who quickly comes to regret his decision to join the military.

The director examined the suburban drone in 1999's American Beauty. In 2002's Road to Perdition, he turned Tom Hanks into a hit man who is indifferent to the job.

In Jarhead, which opens Friday, Mendes again takes a look at the workplace. But this time, the stakes are higher. And employees, Mendes points out, are dying.

"I don't know that people realize we're really at war," Mendes says. "Or what that does to a soldier."

Jarhead explores that, often in painstaking detail. But the film is less about war than it is about the warrior. And it's that approach, says William Broyles Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay with Jarhead author Anthony Swofford, that may help the movie avoid the pitfalls of selling a wartime movie during a time of war.

"This is a love letter to the guys in the field," says Broyles, a former Marine who wrote 1995's Apollo 13 and 2000's Cast Away. "To the grunt, the political context is irrelevant. They're not worried about politics. They've simply got a job to do. And this movie is concerned with how they do that job."

Mendes explores that job by approaching his movie's combat in a distinctly un-Hollywood way.

Though it is seen through the eyes of eager Desert Storm soldiers, there are virtually no battle scenes in Jarhead. The movie takes no stand for or against the conflict. Some soldiers want out of the military. Others are desperate to stay.

"I don't want to tell people what to think about war," says Mendes, who was born in Britain and educated at Cambridge. "I just want them to think about it."

Though Jarhead avoids any references to the current war, the film's timing and parallels are obvious — and intentional. In one scene, after the surrender of Iraq, a soldier proclaims, "We'll never be back here."

"Obviously, there's a good bit of irony to that scene," Mendes says. "A lot of what began in that first war (in 1991) can be extrapolated to what we're seeing today. I think those remain issues we should be talking about, even arguing about."

Too close to reality?

But are audiences in the mood for debate? Jarhead marks Hollywood's latest attempt to tackle war in the Middle East.

It hasn't been easy terrain for filmmakers. The FX television show Over There, Steven Bochco's series based on the current Iraq war, is expected to be canceled because of poor ratings. The documentary Gunner Palace, which followed American soldiers on patrol in fallen Baghdad and enjoyed some of the strongest reviews of the year, took in slightly more than $607,000.

Some scholars wonder whether 24-hour news coverage of the conflict has left audiences weary.

"The Iraq war has entered an uncertain phase of undetermined length," says Kevin Hagopian, a film historian and professor at Penn State University. "No matter how supportive these dramas may be toward the American troops ... these dramas simply remind Americans of all political stripes that we're in a military quagmire."

But will even those who believe progress is being made in Iraq turn out for the movie?

Mendes became intrigued about doing a Gulf War film after reading Swofford's book, which was published just before President Bush's push into Iraq in 2003. The book, about Swofford's experiences as a Marine sniper, was an immediate best seller.

"Everything about that war seemed so far away," says Mendes, 40. "The media never really was allowed in. All you'd see were these tiny little bombs like they were hitting toy towns. There was no sense that this was actually a war, that there was a human toll."

And viewed through the prism of 9/11, Mendes says, the 1991 war suddenly became more relevant.

"I don't think anyone realized how important that war was," Mendes says. "It's pertinent because I think we still don't know what is happening to soldiers on the ground in the desert.

"I'm interested in those personal stories, not taking a political stand."

A bit of heaven and hell

Indeed, the men of Jarhead's platoon run the political gamut. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Swofford, a third-generation enlistee who quickly comes to regret his decision to join the military.

Mendes considered several other stars for the role, including Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio, before choosing Gyllenhaal, who has become an early Oscar contender for his portrayal.

"I thought I was a long shot, but this was a role I was going to fight for," says Gyllenhaal, who has had a busy fall with acclaimed performances in this film, Proof and Brokeback Mountain, due Dec. 9.

Gyllenhaal, 24, says he wasn't so much interested in a shoot-em'-up war film as he was Swofford's personal journey from civilian to soldier — and to manhood.

"I love the idea of how these young guys are struggling with becoming something larger in the middle of this extraordinary world," Gyllenhaal says. "Some of the guys feel like they've just reached heaven. Some feel like they just walked into hell."

Though the movie works hard to give the spectrum of the soldier experience, don't expect to find Jarhead playing in any military recruitment offices. Though the film hired a crew of former Marines as advisers, the military lent no official assistance on the film.

Soldiers in the film are trained to kill. Some are violent racists. Others are outraged at what they see as inept and timid leadership. Most go stir crazy in the desert, driven to near hysteria by heat and boredom.

For Mendes and the stars of the film, divorcing their personal politics from the film proved more important than they initially thought.

"Everyone has their own opinion about what this country is doing," says Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Troy, a Marine who finds his true calling in the military. "Personally, I wish we hadn't gone to Iraq."

But Sarsgaard, whose father was in the Air Force and whose uncle died in Vietnam, says the actors did what soldiers in the field have to do.

"You have to tell yourself, 'To hell with politics. There's a job we have to get done,' " he says. "In that sense, I don't think it's like any war movie I've seen. There's no agenda except to show the family they create and the personal journeys these guys are going through."

Swofford says he never expected those journeys to become the fodder of a best seller or a big-budget film when he returned home to Oregon from Desert Storm.

In both the book and film, Swofford paints a portrait of men primed for battle and left feeling cheated when the ground assault lasts only four days.

"I was a guy, sitting alone in a room in Portland, just wanting to tell people what it's like to be in a war, even if it lasts just four days," Swofford says. "Especially if it lasts just four days."

Jarheads — the nickname for Marines because the high collar on their dress blue uniform makes a Marine's head look as if it were sticking out of a Mason jar — are changed the moment they are trained for war, Swofford says.

"You really are marked," he says. "You're changed for life. And I don't think a lot of war stories and movies tell that. They're more interested in battles and soldiers getting their legs blown off or getting blinded by fire. I'm more interested in the personal side of it."

Mendes says he believes audiences will be, too. "I don't think people are battle-fatigued. If anything, they've tuned out to what's happening.

"I don't know that many people realize what a war does, on the personal scale. Hopefully, this will get people thinking. That's the best thing a film can do."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Send in Marines?
Corps says no sir to filmmakers
By ROBERT DOMINGUEZ
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER

While "Jarhead" depicts U.S. Marines showing bravery in battle during the first Gulf War, it hardly earned a hearty hoo-waa! from the Corps.

The USMC refused to assist the producers with the making of the upcoming film, which is based on former Marine sniper Anthony Swofford's controversial memoir of his 1991 tour of duty in Desert Storm.

"In most cases, we do cooperate," says Lt. Tryiokasus Brown, deputy director of the U.S. Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison Office in Los Angeles.

"But we have particular instructions from the Department of Defense that we follow, and the original script [for "Jarheads"] did not meet D.O.D. requirements," adds Brown. "It did not show a feasible interpretation of military life or operations or policies, and those are the guidelines we follow."

Though Brown could not be specific about the reasons for the USMC's reluctance to aid the production, it's not hard to see why.

Published two years ago, Swofford's "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles" was both lauded and lambasted for its brutally honest look at life in the modern military.

The movie, which opens Friday, likewise contains scenes of young Marines engaging in certain activities - ranging from silly to sexual to psychotic - that would make John Wayne wince with embarrassment.

"Those are [Swofford's] personal memoirs, and we understand it's totally entertainment," says Brown. "It's not meant to be a documentary."

Yet one Marine who has read the book and seen the film has no problems with the screen adaptation.

"I found a few things in the book to be maybe a little inaccurate, maybe embellished," says the corpsman, who wished to remain anonymous. "However, some of the relationships in the movie seemed to be true to life."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Film's Marines miss combat but find conflict
`JARHEAD' LOOKS INSIDE MINDSET OF TROOPS DURING '91 GULF WAR
By Bob Strauss
Los Angeles Daily News

Timing can give something added meaning.

That's the case for both the book and now the movie version of ``Jarhead,'' opening Friday.

First and foremost, in 1990, third-generation Marine Anthony Swofford was sent to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield/Storm, a war that, it turned out, did not require the sniper skills he'd been trained in. It took him nearly a dozen years to write his memoir of that odd modern conflict without ground combat -- and the book came out just as America's second war with Iraq began in 2003.

Now the movie version -- starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford, Jamie Foxx as the composite Sgt. Sykes and Peter Sarsgaard as Swoff's target spotter Troy, and directed by Sam Mendes -- is upon us as the U.S. death toll in Iraq passes 2,000 and the country is more divided than ever over this war.

But rather than take a position on this fight by addressing the last one, ``Jarhead'' strives mainly to explore soldiers' mentality in a specific time and unique situation.

``It's seeking to increase understanding, on some level, of what these guys went through then and, therefore, maybe a little bit, what they're going through now,'' says Mendes, a Briton who won an Academy Award for his first movie directing effort, ``American Beauty.'' ``If it's done that, it's worked. But if anyone's looking for an answer, or thinks that's what we're trying to provide, forget it.''

Also absent -- well, the war. Although the grunts in ``Jarhead'' spend an uncertain six months preparing to invade Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, we know what they don't: that Saddam Hussein's feared military will be quickly destroyed from the air, American ground casualties almost infinitesimal.

So, minus the life-or-death drama inherent in war films, ``Jarhead'' had nowhere else to go but inside its itchy warriors' heads.

``Usually, the action's moving so fast, you don't get the opportunity to see the psychology, really,'' notes Gyllenhaal, 25, who's on a roll this year with ``Jarhead,'' ``Proof'' and the upcoming ``Brokeback Mountain.''

``You do see the effects of it, but you don't see what happens when people are given these standards to live up to and pushed to the brink, but not given a situation where they can use that. So the enemy becomes themselves, ultimately.

``The idea that both a film and a book could be made about waiting and boredom, and make them entertaining, was pretty extraordinary,'' Gyllenhaal says.

Swofford's real unfulfilled aggression was more agonizing.

``In the book, there's a long consideration of not having killed,'' the author says. ``I spent many years wondering: Was I really a Marine, really a combatant, really a sniper? I wanted to kill, and I missed that chance. I was conflicted about that, and I was angry. We, in some ways, felt cheated.

``Writing the book helped exorcise all of that,'' adds Swofford, who has not fired a rifle since mustering out of the Corps. ``Many years later, I'm happy that I didn't have that chance for a sniper kill.''

Both the movie and book show the jarheads, on the eve of flying out of their U.S. base, drunkenly cheering the combat sequences from Francis Ford Coppola's anti-Vietnam War epic ``Apocalypse Now.''

``All of those guys are there because of what they learned from movies,'' Mendes observes. ``Their knowledge of Vietnam was not from Vietnam, but from `Apocalypse Now' and `Full Metal Jacket.' And they pick out what they want to jazz them up, but the truth is these were all passionately anti-war movies.''

That behavior barely registers on the perversity meter compared to what the bored, warfare- and woman-less Marines got into in the Middle Eastern sand for six months.

Take Christmas, for example. A drunken Swofford celebrated wearing nothing but boots and an elf hat as a g-string.

Despite its refreshing lack -- for a post-Vietnam war movie, anyway -- of a political agenda, scenes such as that made Pentagon cooperation with the production of ``Jarhead'' impossible.

``We did ask,'' Mendes reports. ``And luckily, instead of saying, `Well, maybe, if you make a few adjustments,' there was some intelligent person at the Pentagon who flat-out said, `No way.' Which is what you want, because there are lots of stories about them saying yes, then at the last minute wanting changes and, before you know it, everything's compromised.''

However irreverent the material got, though, the key actors stand uniform in their respect for service people.

``I don't care, really, whether the movie polarizes people, Republican, Democrat,'' says Sarsgaard, whose father was in the Air Force. ``I don't think it should. But what's more important to me is that I hope Marines get something out of it. I hope that they feel like we honored them, because we meant to.''

As for Foxx, who finds the very concept of war incomprehensible, even making a movie about surviving one while real soldiers are dying borders on tragedy.

``I still sit and wonder, `How can we have war in these times?' '' the acclaimed ``Ray'' star says.

``For those kids out there that are 18 and 19, losing their lives, it's not a movie, nobody's yelling `Cut!' and nobody's bringing you Evian water and things like that.''

Swofford's initial Hollywood experience was an unusually positive one. Although timing caused a slight delay -- producers were reluctant to commit to his manuscript while our troops were still on the road to Baghdad -- it also helped to enlist the best possible talents for the movie. That included screenwriter and Vietnam War Marine pilot William Broyles (``Apollo 13,'' ``Cast Away'').

As for seeing himself portrayed on screen, that -- and time -- seems to have extended the exorcism process.

``I love Jake's performance,'' Swofford says. ``It's thoughtful, introspective, rough, brash, conflicted . . . and those are things that I was. Through the combination of having read the book, Bill's script and Sam's direction, he really captured that young 20-year-old Marine at war with many things.''

`Jarhead'Rated R (pervasive language, some violent images and strong sexual content)

Cast Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, Jacob Vargas, Skyler Stone, Wade Williams, Katherine Randolph

Director Sam Mendes

Writer William Broyles Jr. from book by Anthony Swofford

Opening Friday

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Eager to enlist the Marines

*Its portrayals may be darker, but Hollywood is still drawn to the Corps. "Jarhead" will be the latest.
By Susan King, Times Staff Writer

Hollywood has always been fascinated with the Armed Services. In fact, the very first movie to win a best picture Oscar was the 1927 World War I epic, "Wings."

Though the Army, Navy and Air Force have been well represented on the big screen, they have been outranked by the Marine Corps. Over the decades Marine movies have run the gamut from the "Halls of Montezuma," "To the Shores of Tripoli" with "A Few Good Men" thrown in for good measure.

The latest cinematic recruit is "Jarhead," which opens Friday. Directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes ("American Beauty") and based on the 2003 bestselling book about former Marine Anthony Swofford, the antiwar, comedy-drama chronicles his surreal exploits in the Corps from his training days to his Desert Shield experiences in Saudi Arabia and to fighting the Iraqis in Kuwait in 1991.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Swofford, a third-generation Marine, and Jamie Foxx is his tough-as-nails leader, Sgt. Siek.

So why has Hollywood produced such an inordinate amount of films dealing with the Marines, the smallest branch of the service?

"When I was growing up there was always this kind of special aura that surrounded the Marine Corps," says Rick Jewell, film professor at the USC School of Cinema & Television. "The Marines were the elite branch of the service. There was this notion that the Marine Corps were the group you called on first when you had a major military problem. This is stretching it a bit, but it was almost like the Marine Corps was the cult of the military. You wanted to be part of this because it made you into something special — the best that America had to offer."

And it was that special aura that captured Hollywood's attention.

Starting with the silent era, two of the most popular films were Marine Corps dramas, "What Price Glory" and "Tell It to the Marines," both produced in 1926.

Based on Maxwell Anderson's hit play, "What Price Glory" focused on the two-fisted Marine sergeants Quirt (Edmund Lowe) and Flagg (Victor McLaglen) who brawl and womanize their way through France. "Glory" was remade in 1952 with James Cagney and Dan Dailey.

The "Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney, didn't use any makeup to play Sgt. O'Hara in "Tell It to the Marines," the tough commander with a heart who whips a group of raw recruits into fighting shape.

William Haines plays troublemaker "Skeet" Burns, whom O'Hara vows to transform into a Marine. And of course, he does.

There was a steady stream of films dealing with the brave exploits of the Marines produced during and after World War II, including 1942's "To the Shores of Tripoli," 1943's "Salute to the Marines," 1945's "Pride of the Marines" and 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima."

"Lots of different people embodied that persona [of the ideal Marine]," Jewell says, "but perhaps nobody better than [John] Wayne in 'Iwo Jima.' "

Wayne received his first best actor Oscar nomination as Sgt. John M. Stryker in the historical action-adventure directed by Allan Dwan.

"Not only was he just tough as nails and willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the unit, the grand design of the war and of America itself, he also had a sensitive side," Jewell says. "The John Agar character in the film changes his attitude completely [because of Wayne]. He hates his father. He hates Wayne, but by the end of the film he has become the next generation of the Marine Corps spirit."

Stryker, though, is a far cry from the Marine madmen played by Robert Duvall in 1980's "The Great Santini," R. Lee Ermey in Stanley Kubrick's 1987 "Full Metal Jacket" or Jack Nicholson in 1992's "A Few Good Men."

In fact, the change in Hollywood's attitude toward the Marines parallels the rise of the antiwar movement that began during the Vietnam conflict.

Jewell cites "Great Santini," for which Duvall was Oscar-nominated as a martinet career soldier, as the turning point in Marine movies.

"That's when, instead of that kind of idealized vision of the Marine, you get the other side," Jewell says. "You begin to feel these characters as not so admirable, as embodying not the best of America, but maybe the worst of America. They lose completely their humanity and become just monsters."

But perhaps none so monstrous as Ermey's Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, a foul-mouthed maniac who drives one of his recruits to suicide in "Full Metal Jacket."

"If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon," Hartman tells his men. "But until that day ... you are the lowest form of life on Earth."

Adds Jewell: "It is the liberal or pacifist vision of the Marine as a killing machine. In these later films the [Marine] spirit is more about madness. This kind of stuff has been taken to such an extreme so people like Nicholson or Ermey are frightening characters."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Burning Men
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as neither an officer nor a gentleman in 'Jarhead,' a story about the Gulf War
By Richard von Busack

DESPITE all the persuasive force of cinema (which is like saying "despite all the hydraulic force of Niagara") antiwar films have proven to be of almost zero effectiveness. In Jarhead, there is a scene that Francis Ford Coppola may not want to see: a theater full of Marines cheering like maniacs at the "Ride of the Valkyries" sequence in Apocalypse Now as the helicopters set out to blow up women and children.

Jarhead's misleading previews promise a grim inspirational story of how the Corps made a man out of a maggot. In fact, the film has more in common with Catch-22 than with An Officer and a Gentleman. That said, Jarhead doesn't stint the effort and willpower it takes to become a Marine. It explains that the semper fidelis ideology is something branded into a recruit—literally sometimes—and that this experience never ends.

Jarhead is based on a memoir by Sacramento's Anthony Swofford (played by Jake Gyllenhaal). He was a sniper in the Marines' elite STA, staked out on the Iraq border during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. A third-generation Marine, Swofford went in with the right attitude and a heart's longing to make "a pink mist" out of an Iraqi soldier's head.

But Gyllenhaal's Swofford is stalled by degrading, alienating training, by witnessing death by friendly fire and by dull months of nothingness made endurable only by endless sessions of masturbation. The terrible womanless life is summed up by a "wall of shame" the Marines erect at camp. Photographs of unfaithful girls are pinned on it, captioned with things like: "I loved her so much. She took the kid and disappeared."

Over the course of the film, Swofford and his partner Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) prepare for combat. But at the end of the story, Troy has gone dead-eyed, and not just in a way that's good for a sniper. Troy is the first to figure out the uselessness of a foot soldier in a war where the advances on the front can be measured in terms of miles per hour.

Sam Mendes' previous films, American Beauty and Road to Perdition, were overcomposed. In this, his best movie, a laid-back, spare style suits Gyllenhaal's look of friendly incredulousness. It's a lighter film than the book, where there is more drugs, more machismo, more sociopathic behavior. Incidents like the urban-legendish moment of the homemade porno tape look even more unlikely onscreen. And we hear a touch of glibness in the Thomas Newman soundtrack—the easy irony of the moronic "Don't Worry, Be Happy" contrasted with the pain of basic training. That lapse is redeemed later by a satisfyingly appropriate use of Nirvana's "Something in the Way" during Swofford's near breakdown.

Jarhead is lightened by the supporting cast. Chris Cooper has a couple of scenes as a communications officer who whips up morale with atrocity photos. Jamie Foxx's dry sarcasm as a staff sergeant is ingratiating. He plays an even-tempered Bible reader with a passion for being stationed in hell. And if ultimately Swofford doesn't pass through the baptism of fire he expects, he does witness horrors: the Kuwaiti oil fields lit up under clouds of raining, stinging oil, and a lunch stop beside a freeway covered by roasted civilians.

The political reasons for all this death are immaterial to the Marines. A character called Pinko gripes about the U.S. foreign policy that led to an armed and dangerous Saddam. No one listens. Soldiers aren't supposed to talk about the politics of the war. Civilians aren't supposed to, either, because our soldiers are in it. So who is supposed to talk about it?

If you squint, you can even catch references to Gulf War syndrome, perhaps caused by the pills taken to immunize against nerve gas or by the pollutants the Marines wade through. (Oddly, Mendes makes no references to a likely cause of the mysterious syndrome: depleted uranium shell casings.)

Jarhead is iciest as a service comedy. It jests about those who thought they would gain power by joining the Marines, but who then learned they didn't have a lick of choice once they were inside. I've heard complaints that the film doesn't arc—but Jarhead sums up a great deal of the stasis and repetition of the military experience.

The richer movements include a Marine's embarrassment as he hears a helicopter sail by, blasting "Break On Through" by the Doors: "That's Vietnam music, man! Can't we have our own music?" Back on the mainland, during a welcome-home parade, a ragged, ruined Vietnam vet jumps aboard the bus. The returning Marines feel like they've seen a corpse at a christening. "All wars are the same, and all wars are different," says Swofford in voice-over. A platitude, but also an essential revelation to a young man who thought he could change himself and the world by getting into uniform.

The battlefield sequence will be just as disappointing to war-movie lovers as it is to Swofford. U.S. jets light up the sky with slow, fat balls of fire, just as in Apocalypse Now. But the conflagration is seen in reverse, reflected on a window with Swofford's disappointed face visible through it. The joke's on him. He might as well have stayed at home and watched a movie.

Jarhead (R), directed by Sam Mendes, written by William Broyles Jr., based on the memoir by Anthony Swofford, photographed by Roger Deakins and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx, opens Friday at selected theaters.

Send a letter to the editor about this story to letters@metronews.com.



Photograph by Francois Duhamel

A Shaved Head of His Time: Jake Gyllenhaal joins the Marines in 'Jarhead.'

Ellie

[thedrifter]

The true story behind "Jarhead" -- Greenville mom takes issue with book, movie
Thursday, November 03, 2005
By Ted Roelofs
The Grand Rapids Press

GREENVILLE -- Diantha Eldridge remembers all the Marines in their crisp dress blues, how they came to her home in Greenville in 1992 to pay respects to her son.

Although he signed the funeral guest book, she has no memory of one certain Marine -- Anthony Swofford, author of "Jarhead," a gritty account of the Gulf War and now a major movie, opening Friday.

She does take issue with the book's depiction of her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Troy Collier. Eldridge said she tried to reach Swofford to give him a piece of her mind.

"We would have had a talking-to," she said. "A lot of things in there aren't true."

Collier is a major figure in Swofford's book, a battlefield comrade credited with saving the author from suicide. But Eldridge and other Greenville-area residents are convinced Swofford's account of their town and the events surrounding his funeral is as much fiction as fact.

As for the movie, the name Troy Collier no longer exists. A major character in the film, "Allen Troy," played by actor Peter Sarsgaard, appears to be a composite character that includes elements of Troy Collier. One of the movie's final scenes depicts a funeral for Allen Troy, though the movie doesn't reveal how he died.

The real-life Troy Collier died Feb. 23, 1992, killed instantly about 7:30 a.m. when he lost control of his 1989 Nissan pickup and slid off M-91, striking several trees. He was 22.

Eldridge said her son, a 1987 graduate of Greenville High School, had been out of the Marines just two months when he died. He was on his way to work as a nurse's aide at an adult foster care home in Saranac.

When she learned about the book "Jarhead," which made the 2003 New York Times bestseller list, Eldridge felt like she lost her son a second time.

"I was devastated when I read some of the things in that book," she said. "Things rushed back at me. I felt like I was going through his death all over again."

Except for the scenes set in Greenville, Eldridge, 56, said she didn't read much of the book, a blunt, profanity-laced account of the Gulf War and the Marine subculture.

Eldridge said she was most troubled by this comment of Swofford about her son: "I also knew that just like me, he believed in no God."

Eldridge recalled that her son "wasn't very happy" after he got out of the Marines and came back home to live. He was studying to be a nurse at Muskegon Community College and still piecing together life after his time in the military.

But on this, she is adamant: "Troy did believe in God. Troy went to church after he came home. Nobody made him."

The book recalls his burial at a Greenville cemetery on a bitterly cold day with below-zero wind chill, an inch or two of snow on the ground. Eldridge said it was unusually mild, the ground not even frozen, the day she buried her son.

Later, the book recounts how Swofford and the other Marines decided to go for a drink at a "bar in the basement of an antique shop."

There's no such bar in Greenville, but locals agree that was most likely a bar called Legends, in the basement of the Winter Inn.

They are skeptical about what "Jarhead" says happened there. The story recounts a spectacular fight between the Marines and about a dozen local toughs. One of the Marines is insulted, the book says, and the Marines soon are taking on all comers, busting chairs and breaking bottles over heads. Swofford says he threw the instigator of the fight over the bar in a crash of broken bottles.

Barry Thornton, partial owner of the Winter Inn, was an ID checker at the entrance to the bar at that time. He recalls a fight involving some Marines or Army soldiers, but nothing like that account. The bar closed about nine years ago.

"I remember a lot of glasses got broken," he said. "But there was no time when anyone got thrown behind the bar. I don't recall anything where glasses were ever broken over anyone's head. I would remember that."

The book also recounts how the police came and took them into their cars and told them they should leave town the next day.

Bruce Schnepp, Greenville's director of public safety and a lifelong resident of Greenville, said he has no recollection of anything like that.

Though she differs with much of "Jarhead," Eldridge said the book does get one thing right about Marine life.

"They all did a lot of drinking. They were always drinking. That part is true."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

A jarring portrayal of a dusty war
Plan your next event with Caterer Search
BY JAN STUART
STAFF WRITER

November 4, 2005

In the jangling, discomfortingly facetious early chapters of "Jarhead," an audience of Marines gathers for a screening of the now-classic Vietnam War epic "Apocalypse Now." At the iconic moment when Uncle Sam's air fleet storms the Viet Cong villages to the strains of Wagner, the men cheer and sing along with tailgate-party brio as the countryside is eviscerated in a hailstorm of fire and bullets.

The men are so charged with the manic fervor of basic training, their enthusiasm is unfettered from distracting pangs of empathy or conscience. There is nothing on their faces to indicate remorse for (let alone awareness of) the villagers we see being mowed down in the wide-screen spectacle of collateral damage.

"Every war is different, every war is the same" concludes the narrator-protagonist, and one is tempted to apply this maxim to war movies as well. Sam Mendes' sweltering and pristine portrait of one Marine's experience of the first Persian Gulf war begins like a counterinsurgent lampoon of Stanley Kubrick's Vietnam opus, "Full Metal Jacket," then attempts to paint Operation Desert Storm in awe-evoking shades of the surreal, much as Francis Ford Coppola did for the 1960s conflict in "Apocalypse Now."

Adapted by screenwriter and ex-Marine William Broyles from Anthony Swofford's bestselling memoir, "Jarhead" plants a galvanic Jake Gyllenhaal in the malleable shoes of the book's author. A product of his father's gung-ho service in Vietnam, Gyllenhaal's Swoff exemplifies that combat-picture staple, the fighting man who signs on with unquestioning commitment and sense of purpose but is gradually transformed by the madness of war.

Swoff's metamorphosis begins with his training as a sniper scout in Saudi Arabia, where his fellow "jarheads" (self-deprecating slang for Marine) railroad him into the high-testosterone rites of military bonding, and his wiseacre sergeant (Jamie Foxx) reinvents the ego-obliterating game of humiliating the new recruit. But Swoff is nothing if not adaptable, and Gyllenhaal's complicitous smirk encourages us to laugh along with his freakish initiation.

The chuckles recede once a fellow recruit gets killed during combat training, and Swoff is shipped off to Kuwait, where boredom and disorientation push his company members (among whom, Brian Geraghty and Evan Jones make indelible impressions) to new limits of xenophobia and insensitivity.

Swoff is no angel, either: Sickened by suspicions of his girlfriend's faithlessness back home, he leads the chorus of derision at another cuckolded soldier. The one who exhibits the most developed moral compass is also the one with the most suspect history, Swoff's sniper-scout partner Troy (Peter Sarsgaard, lending heft to an underwritten role).

Photographed with a stunning palette of reds and yellows by Richard Deakins, the film's ultimate inferno of burning oil wells and charred bodies is truly hellish. But "Jarhead" is perhaps too self-conscious an act of filmmaking to flatten us as it should, a problem accentuated by its pointed cinematic references.

Pointedly, the troops' efforts to watch "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deer Hunter" are rudely pre-empted. The coitus interruptus nature of modern warfare is underscored by Swoff, who, upon the abrupt end of Desert Storm, complains, "I never got to shoot my gun." If all wars are the same and different, "Jarhead" implies, what separates the current Iraq quagmire from its Kuwaiti dress rehearsal is body count and sheer endlessness. If so, do we really need another movie about the terrible beauty of war?

Ellie

[enviro]

-----Original Message-----
*From:* Leek Col William P
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 26, 2005 12:09 PM
*To:* 6MCD ALL
*Subject:* FW: 'Jarhead' TP's.
*Importance:* High

fyi

Below are Talking Points provided by HQMC DivPA for the movie
"Jarhead." The talking points were developed in consultation
with L.A. PAO and, subject to your approval, should receive the
widest dissemination.

"Jarhead," based on the book of the same title, is a self-deprecating
look by one former Marine of his service during Operations Desert
Shield/Desert Storm. The movie did not receive Marine Corps support.
It is scheduled to air on November 4, 2005.

As with previous films, the movie producers may be at Cinema
complexes with cameras to solicit feedback from Marines. Marines
should be discouraged from viewing the movie in uniform and from
making any comment that would result in the appearance of
endorsement.


Talking points as follows:

* The movie's script is an inaccurate portrayal of Marines in
general and does not provide a reasonable interpretation of
military life and thus it did not meet the criteria for DoD
assistance.

* The film is a form of entertainment and directors tend take a
creative license to make the film entertaining to their audience
and generally are not concerned with accurate or reasonable
portrayals of military life, operations and policies.

* Marines should be prudent on how they comment on the movies
merit and refrain from endorsing or not endorsing a particular
form of entertainment.

Below are two reviews of the movie.

v/r,

Maj. Billy Canedo

"Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford
In this self-lacerating memoir, an ex-Marine sniper who fought in the
Gulf yearns to escape from the myths of warfare and the sadism of
military life.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
*By Laura Miller*

March 10, 2003 | The dirty secret about combat memoirs isn't that war
is senseless or that heroes are often terrified or that the battlefield
can turn even good men into dehumanized monsters or that everyone is
bored except for the moments when they're scared ****less or even that
there is a beast inside every last one of us. The secret is that these
stories are all more or less the same, once you decide which of two
categories they belong to: tales of valor and tales of squalor.

The tales of valor have enjoyed a resurgence of late, particularly those
about World War II, but despite "Band of Brothers" and other enterprises
of the late Stephen Ambrose, the second, bleaker type of war story is
still ascendant. Its touchstones are Joseph Heller's "Catch-22" (a
novel, but still) and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," books
that strive to explain that, stupid as it is to fight wars, it is even
stupider to glorify the fighting of them. And, more recently, war
memoirs verge on disparaging themselves, so dark and roiling is the
contempt to be found in them. Anthony Swofford's "Jarhead" is one of
those books; you imagine him half-wishing, as he gets to the end of the
book, that he could reach back and start erasing it from the beginning.

Swofford was a lance corporal in a United States Marine Corps
scout/sniper platoon who saw combat in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during
the Gulf War. Specifically, he was fired upon by both the enemy and his
own side, but didn't actually kill anyone himself. His war was short,
and it only takes up the last third or so of this slender book. Of
necessity, Swofford devotes more pages to his childhood and youth, his
training in the U.S. and overseas, and the several months he spent
stationed with his platoon in the Arabian desert waiting for the war to
begin.
http://www.salon.com/books/review/20.../index_np.html



Tits And Explosions

Jarhead
Anthony Swofford

Chris Mitchell

/Jarhead/ documents Swofford's time in the US Marine Corps in the run up
to Gulf War One - as a personal insight into the American war machine
and the daily life of a scout/sniper both in preparation for and within
the actual theatre of war, /Jarhead/ is a compelling ground level
description. Far more fascinating though is Swofford's analysis of his
own reasons for joining the Corps and the ambivalent mentality of those
who serve within it, simultaneously wishing for nothing more than combat
and hoping they will never see combat.

Swofford perfectly captures the Marine Corp for what it is - a tool of
force, whose soldiers are frankly uncaring of the politics behind their
orders (even if they disagree with those politics) but are wholly
consumed with precision business of 21st century killing. To be primed
to kill and yet remain wholly human is the tension that exists for every
soldier and /Jarhead's/ brilliance is how Swofford captures this
continual movement back and forth over the line. This is a short but
perfectly formed book, with a prose style that places the reader
straight amongst the high-octane and profane thoughts and actions of the
grunts, that explores the undeniable glamour of war alongside its
insanity and remains wholly unsentimental in its depiction of an elite
combat unit.

/Jarhead/ is neither a celebration or condemnation of Swofford's time
within the military, but an attempt to bring together the mass of
disparate threads and emotions that training and serving as a marine
produces on its subjects. It's a sobering reminder that while those who
serve in the Forces are at a peak of physical fitness and mental
alertness unrivalled by most of those outside a military context, there
is sometimes a price to be paid for achieving those heights whether or
not the call to combat is made.

-----Original Message-----
*From:* Hayes Maj Wesley T [mailto:HayesWT@marines.usmc.mil]
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 26, 2005 10:24
*To:* Canedo Maj Guillermo A; Kloppel Maj Joseph D
*Cc:* Edwards MSgt James D; Nyhart Maj Jeffrey J
*Subject:* FW: 'Jarhead' TP's.

Gentlemen.
For yours and your District PAO's and MPA's SA. Release of the movie
scheduled for Nov 4.
1st District received an invitation to a closed screening and
appropriately and politely declined the request.

Maj Nyhart's input on the movie:

* The movies script is an inaccurate portrayal of Marines in
general and does not provide a reasonable interpretation of
military life and thus it did not meet the criteria for DoD
assistance.
* The film is a form of entertainment and directors tend take a
creative license to make the film entertaining to their audience
and generally are not concerned with accurate or reasonable
portrayals of military life, operations and policies.
* Marines should be prudent on how they comment on the movies
merit and refrain from endorsing or not endorsing a particular
form of entertainment.

Pls let me know if you have any concerns or questions. V/r, Wes



-----Original Message-----
*From:* May LtCol Thomas F
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 26, 2005 7:33 AM
*To:* Butler SSgt Matthew A; Nyhart Maj Jeffrey J
*Cc:* Hayes Maj Wesley T; Caetano Capt Donald A; Powell Maj Douglas M;
Andersen Maj David C; Vanopdorp LtCol Harold R
*Subject:* RE: 'Jarhead' TP's.

SSgt Butler,
In the end, we chose to graciously decline the invitation
completely. No one will be attending.

Thanks,
LtCol May


LtCol Tom May
Executive Officer
1st Marine Corps District
(516) 228-5654

-----Original Message-----
*From:* Butler SSgt Matthew A
*Sent:* Wednesday, October 26, 2005 7:27 AM
*To:* Nyhart Maj Jeffrey J
*Cc:* Hayes Maj Wesley T; Caetano Capt Donald A; Powell Maj Douglas
M; Andersen Maj David C; Brown 1stLt Tryiokasus W; Goff Sgt James S;
Zapata GySgt Santiago; May LtCol Thomas F
*Subject:* RE: 'Jarhead' TP's.

Good morning,

HBO through the USO invited eight Marines and their guest to a closed
screening of the movie for tonight. The request was for the Marines
to go in uniform but with our recommendation they will go in
civilian attire and are encouraged not to be movie critics. Thank
you for the official guidance.

Best regards,

SSgt. Butler
Public Affairs Chief
1st Marine Corps District
516-972-6852 cell



------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Nyhart Maj Jeffrey J
*Sent:* Tue 10/25/2005 10:42 AM
*To:* Butler SSgt Matthew A
*Cc:* Hayes Maj Wesley T; Caetano Capt Donald A; Powell Maj Douglas
M; Andersen Maj David C; Brown 1stLt Tryiokasus W; Goff Sgt James S;
Zapata GySgt Santiago
*Subject:* FW: 'Jarhead' TP's.

SSgt Butler,

Recommend Marines do not attend special screening of "Jarhead" in
uniform. This looks to be a set-up to get the USMC to
comment/endorse this film. See below email to MCRC PAO. Generally
these special screening are for the media to write their reviews.
If they see Marines in uniform, they will no doubt approach them to
comment on the film.

I have no concerns with Marines attending in civilian attire.

Who provided the tickets for Marines to attend?

* _____________________________*
* Major Jeff Nyhart*
* Director, U.S. Marine Corps Motion Picture & Television Liaison**
Office*
* 10880 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1230*
* Los Angeles, CA 90024*
* 310-235-7272*
* */ nyhartjj@hqmc.usmc.mil/

-----Original Message-----
*From: * Nyhart Maj Jeffrey J
*Sent: * Wednesday, October 19, 2005 6:13 PM
*To: * Hayes Maj Wesley T
*Cc: * Powell Maj Douglas M; John Johnston (E-mail); Brown
1stLt Tryiokasus W; Goff Sgt James S; Zapata GySgt Santiago
*Subject: * RE: 'Jarhead' TP's.

Sure Wes

If they've seen the movie, all they need to tell them is that
"I prefer to refrain from assuming the role of a movie
critic." - leave it as that. Or perhaps they could say that
"I'm not a movie critic and perhaps you should ask someone who
is." Make sure they say it with a smile.

I have no idea how the movie will come out, but we felt the
script's portrayal of Marines in general did not provide a
reasonable interpretation of military life and thus it did not
meet the criteria for DoD assistance.

This film is a form of entertainment and directors tend take a
creative license to make the film entertaining to their
audience and generally are not concerned with accurate or
reasonable portrayals of military life, operations and
policies. We should be careful on how we comment on its merit
and refrain from endorsing or not endorsing a particular form
of entertainment.

Jeff

* _____________________________*
* Major Jeff Nyhart*
* Director, U.S. Marine Corps Motion Picture & Television
Liaison** Office*
* 10880 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1230*
* Los Angeles, CA 90024*
* 310-235-7272*
/ nyhartjj@hqmc.usmc.mil/


-----Original Message-----
*From: * Hayes Maj Wesley T
[mailto:HayesWT@marines.usmc.mil]
*Sent: * Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:30 PM
*To: * Powell Maj Douglas M; Nyhart Maj Jeffrey J
*Subject: * 'Jarhead' TP's.

Doug, Jeff.
Have you gents done up anything as far as TP's for the
movie?
I believe that the MC did not endorse the movie in any
way, but I would like to potentially get our recruiters
a TP or two so they have something in their pocket when
they are out in town around the country.

THX. Wes

V/r, Major Wes Hayes
Public Affairs Officer
Marine Corps Recruiting Command
Tel: (703) 784-9455
Cell: (703) 675-7901
hayeswt@marines.usmc.mil

[thedrifter]

Movie Review
"Jarhead": Inside heads of Marines waiting for action
By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

"Jarhead," based on Anthony Swofford's best-selling Gulf War memoir, is not so much about war as about waiting for war, and about the impact that waiting has on a not-yet-formed young man. Jake Gyllenhaal, head shaved and eyes frightened, is Swoff, who "got lost on the way to college" and became a Marine in 1990. After training, he's quickly on a plane to Saudi Arabia, wondering how long he'll be there. Two weeks, says somebody confidently. Not exactly.

Once in the desert, weeks stretch into months, and Swoff and his cohorts play football (in 112-degree heat), mourn the women left behind and keep themselves in shape by jogging across the sands in heavy gear while they wait for something to happen. And for a long time in this movie, nothing does. Lulled along by director Sam Mendes' meticulous pace and Roger Deakins' bleached-out, almost sunburned cinematography, we become part of Swoff's unit and wait with them, becoming increasingly invested in these men's fates. "Jarhead" is often a film about boredom, but it's never boring; full of unexpected touches and detailed character turns.
Movie review 3 stars

Showtimes and trailer
"Jarhead," with Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Lucas Black, Brian Geraghty, Jacob Vargas, Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysberg, Jamie Foxx. Directed by Sam Mendes, from a screenplay by William Broyles Jr., based on the book by Anthony Swofford. 115 minutes. Rated R for pervasive language, some violent images and strong sexual content. Several theaters.

Mendes, working from a screenplay by William Broyles Jr., takes us on the up-and-down swoop of the men's emotions: We watch them singing riotously along to "Ride of the Valkyries" as they watch a special screening of "Apocalypse Now," hitting up the flight attendants on the plane to the desert, making elaborate drama from gladiator-type scorpion fights, and getting drunk on a disorderly, raucous Christmas Eve in their tents. They rarely question their purpose there — of the film's few brushes with politics is a sequence when journalists arrive at the camp, and Staff Sgt. Sykes (a fast-talking Jamie Foxx) gives the men scripted lines to deliver. "You're a Marine," he says. "There's no such thing as speech that is free."

Instead, the story takes place inside those well-shaved heads (the title, a nickname for Marines, derives from the shape of the traditional haircut), particularly Swoff's, a frustrated boy-man who's trained to kill, but isn't getting the opportunity. When combat finally arises — for a couple of days — he's desperate to prove himself, and the film is momentarily reduced to one tight-focus shot of a finger, curled around a trigger. Gyllenhaal, a gifted actor whose natural boyishness is a perfect fit here, lets us see Swoff's inner torment; the gradual realization that what is happening here is changing him forever.

"Jarhead" is often mesmerizing and strangely beautiful; Mendes, as he showed in "Road to Perdition" and "American Beauty," has an eye for striking images. Deakins' shots of the desert's mysteriously shimmering, lunar-like surface (seared black after a bomb blast, with eerie white footprints) haunt us, just as the memories haunt Swoff in the film's coda. This is a story of creating distraction to ward off fear of the unknown, of making a home in a place that's unwelcoming. "Inside of our circus," writes Swoff, "we cannot be injured."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines anxiously awaiting 'Jarhead'
November 04,2005
BY Chris Mazzolini View stories by reporter
Freedom ENC

JACKSONVILLE - At the beginning of his 2003 memoir, "Jarhead," Marine Gulf War veteran-turned-writer Anthony Swofford descends into his basement and finds his old rucksack, blasted and chewed from the sand and oil of the desert.

It's a ceremony Swofford uses to call on both the muse and memory, tossing a line backwards to the man he was in 1990 and 1991 when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, a line he uses to pull that Marine into the future to say something about what Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield meant.

Now, "Jarhead" is a major motion picture. It opens today, staring big-time actors with a big-time budget.

Whether Gulf War vets will see it or not doesn't really matter. Just hearing the film's title and seeing the previews will be enough to pull those veterans into the past, to remember those days when the troops went to war and air raids were shown on TV and the oil fields burned.

'Engage at will'

Bruce Gombar remembers by drawing maps. Sitting in his Onslow County Economic Development office, the Gulf War Marine Corps battalion commander sketches quick drawings of the battlefield, those mine-littered miles along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, as he describes what he lived through.

He draws troop formations, points out the path of the 2nd Marine Division and shows how his battalion, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, moved on the right flank.

Occasionally, Gombar will stumble over a detail, but he always gets it right in the end. He vividly recalls what units were with him and beneath him, the titles of various landmarks - Six Ring Road, Al Jabbar Airfield and the name of the one Marine in his command - Cpl. Victor Lake - who died in a tragic accident.

On Feb. 24, 1991, Operation Desert Sabre - the ground portion of the campaign - began in earnest. American and coalition troops moved into Kuwait, where the Iraqi army had built barricades and laid down minefields. Combat engineers either used line charges to blow alleys in the mined sand or had to remove them manually with mine-clearing tanks.

And the oil fields always burned, courtesy of retreating Iraqi forces. It took a shift in the wind for it to come your way, Gombar said, but when it did there was no escape. The black clouds, soot and grease obscured the sun so that midday became midnight. Marines had to find their way by other means.

"Everything had a black film, a greasy film over it," Gombar said. "The smoke and the soot from these oil wells had literally blotted out the sun. At one point in the afternoon, I needed a flashlight to read my map."

The largest battle Gombar's unit engaged in started in the dawn hours of the second day of fighting. Because of the time, Gombar calls it the "Reveille Engagement."

That morning, Predator, the call sign of Gombar's tank company commander, came over the radio with a stunning announcement.

"I've got tanks approaching from the north," Gombar recalls hearing, "too many to count."

"I said, 'Engage at will,' " Gombar said. "I forget how many tanks we killed. But we destroyed the lead battalion of a brigade that was coming down to reinforce Al Jabbar air field."

For three days, they barreled through the oil-stained desert, passing surrendered Iraqis who had thrown their weapons down, and fought them when they hadn't. It became obvious that the Iraqis "were trying to get out of Dodge," as Gombar put it. They drove along the infamous "Highway of Death," weaving between bombed out vehicles and people.

As quickly as the war started, it ended.

It's an experience that will always stay with him, Gombar said.

"It was unequivocally the highlight of my career," he said. "Having the privilege to command Marines in combat is the epitome of what being a Marine is about. I never felt as alive as I did then.

"It's hard to explain, because you never want to go off to war, but I was disappointed when it ended."

'Cloud of darkness'

While Swofford was a scout/sniper who saw combat, much of his book focuses on the other times: the waiting, worrying and questioning.

Retired Master Gunnery Sgt Brian Carey, a career Marine who was in Kuwait with the command element of the 2nd Marine Division, said fear of the unknown was a pervasive feeling as they ramped up to go. He remembers writing a letter to his father that said, "Hopefully one day I can sit next to you and read this."

"I told my wife, 'Everything's going to be OK,' but I didn't feel that way," he said. "You didn't know, so you had to go off with the sense of worst-case scenario."

The anxiety during the weeks of buildup before the war was also very real, when the conflict was still Operation Desert Shield.

"Looking back, other than infantry units, I don't believe the average Marine was as prepared to go to combat, more mentally than physically," said Carey, who now works for Marine Federal Credit Union. "It was a mental challenge. I left having full faith and confidence in our leaders, but never having been exposed to combat prior to this, there was this cloud of darkness inside."

He recalled a prank he pulled on one of the Marines beneath him: Carey told him he had been reassigned to an infantry unit.

"I watched him emotionally begin to collapse," he said.

It was a tough lesson, he said, but one that was needed to show that they needed to be ready. In fact, despite being in the rear with the commanding general, Maj. Gen. William Keys, Carey said he was constantly on edge. Bombs shook the ground and passing aircraft always brought unease. It was a constant state of alert.

"You watch every vehicle," he said.

Now 14 years later, Carey said he looks back on the Gulf War as a moment that confirmed his identity as a Marine. Seeing the celebration of the Kuwaiti people made it worthwhile for Carey.

"It was a turning point for me," he said. "I had an even stronger sense of belonging. That (tour of duty) was very rewarding because I had an actual hands-on opportunity to protect and see the rewards of that on the faces of those we assisted. I carried that back home with me and look at America in a whole new sense."

'Always skeptical'

Both Gombar and Carey said they might go see "Jarhead," but both expressed doubts that the movie would accurately describe what the Gulf War was like.

Gombar said movies about the Vietnam era, such as "Platoon" or "Apocalypse Now," weren't really accurate portrayals of what went on.

"I'll probably go see it," Gombar said. "But I'm always skeptical about those movies. They don't portray things accurately."

Carey said that "Full Metal Jacket" hit home for him, but most movies don't do the source material justice.

While he's not going to rush out to see it, Carey said if the movie is more than just an amusing time-filler and actually portrays a vivid account of the war, then it might be worth a look.

"I'm not into exploitation," he said. "If it's a great movie, if America takes something away from it other than entertainment, then that's great."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

'Casualties of War,' now that's a movie
By Michael Sragow
Sun Movie Critic
Originally published November 4, 2005

Jarhead contends that Marines fresh to the Corps watch the most famous fictional Vietnam movies and clap where civilians are appalled. In the picture's liveliest scene, grunts whoop it up during the helicopter attack in Apocalypse Now and bellow out Wagner at the top of their lungs as the choppers do their Ride of the Valkyries and wreak havoc on a Vietnamese village.

What's sad is that you can see how that reaction is possible. Vietnam movies from Apocalypse Now to Platoon presented the war in Southeast Asia as the American recruits' entrance into the Heart of Darkness, where the horrors are so overwhelming that they suck ethics and morality into an abyss.

That's not the case with Hollywood's forgotten Vietnam epic - emotionally and analytically, the most sophisticated treatment of that war, and for my money the last great American war movie. Brian De Palma's Casualties of War, now available on DVD at the fire-sale price of $9.99, makes the Heart of Darkness route look like an easy way out. It takes you on one soldier's journey into moral responsibility. It refuses to leave you with vague alibis for American excesses in and out of combat.

Jumping off from an actual incident that occurred in 1966 (first told by Daniel Lang in The New Yorker, Oct. 18, 1969, and later reprinted as a book), De Palma shapes the material as a full-scale personal tragedy, operatic and intimate, rather than some generalized dirge for American youth and the Vietnamese war dead. Yet by following the pilgrim's progress of Pfc. Eriksson (Michael J. Fox), a green grunt in a squad that embarks on the kidnap and rape (and eventual murder) of a Vietnamese girl (Thuy Thu Le), De Palma illuminates the ethical catastrophes of war. Placing a Vietnamese girl at the very center of the action, De Palma never stops asking: Why were we in Vietnam?

At first, Eriksson gets drawn into the squad's gung-ho feeling. In the cunningly deceptive opening scenes, Meserve (Sean Penn), the tough sergeant who saves this private's life, emerges as a traditional hero. When a sniper wounds Meserve's best friend, Meserve immediately stanches the blood with the flesh of his palm. It's screenwriter David Rabe's most original invention - the best piece of action he doesn't take from Lang's book. Meserve's move is part prayer, and the blade of the rescue helicopter beats like an angel's wings. The scene takes the pure willpower behind soldiering into an unexpected realm of absurdity and poignancy.

At the start, Fox's Eriksson, not Penn's Meserve, is the one who provokes nervousness because his naivete and wholesomeness make him vulnerable. But then the unthinkable happens. Piled-up agony and frustration chip away at Meserve's core. Upset when a Vietnamese *****house is declared off-limits, Meserve tells his men that they'll abduct a Vietnamese girl and use her as "portable R&R."

Penn conveys an extraordinary spooked tension as Meserve, and Fox's face takes on a deepening, discombobulating maturity as Eriksson - he becomes our representative in the action, the one focus of humanity and sanity in a lunatic enterprise.

In the long, detailed midsection, the squad uses the native beauty, Oahn (Le), as a pack animal before raping and murdering her. Yet De Palma's treatment of this atrocity is a triumph of nuance and sensitivity. He turns conventional movie rhetoric upside down. He dazzles you with the splendorous image of men moving in profile against a blood-red sunrise - until you see that one of them is carrying Oahn, her head and limbs thrashing wildly.

A lesser director might have used Le's Oahn abstractly, as a nightmarish human sculpture on the theme of defilement. Under De Palma's guidance, Le transforms Oahn into a haunting personage. Eriksson isn't able to save this innocent, and his personal defeat will torment him the rest of his days. The pitiful "I'm sorry" that he offers up to Oahn can't help the situation. No words can.

De Palma allows you to identify with one sympathetic American, yet refuses to flinch from his failures. That may make the movie's greatest scenes - in which Eriksson struggles to communicate with Oahn - too much for some audiences to bear. (The movie was a commercial flop.)

After the inevitable killing takes place, and Eriksson tries to bring the other men to trial, the events keep growing in your mind. They come to encompass the crazy extremes of the military's dependence on hierarchy and the dangers of moral relativity.

Casualties of War is a transcendent American movie: a flesh-and-blood Vietnam War memorial that also includes scarred American survivors and the Vietnamese. The Marines of Jarhead could never look at this film and cheer.

michael.sragow@baltsun.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Gulf film jars memories
November 04,2005
BY CHRIS MAZZOLINI View stories by reporter
DAILY NEWS STAFF

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a three-part series of stories looking at the opening of the movie "Jarhead."

At the beginning of his 2003 memoir, "Jarhead," Marine Gulf War veteran-turned-writer Anthony Swofford descends into his basement and finds his old rucksack, blasted and chewed from the sand and oil of the desert.

It's a ceremony Swofford uses to call on both the muse and memory, tossing a line backwards to the man he was in 1990 and 1991 when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, a line he uses to pull that Marine into the future to say something about what Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield meant.

Now, "Jarhead" is a major motion picture. It opens today, staring big-time actors with a big-time budget.

Whether Gulf War vets will see it or not doesn't really matter. Just hearing the film's title and seeing the previews will be enough to pull those veterans into the past, to remember those days when the troops went to war and air raids were shown on TV and the oil fields burned.

'Engage at will'

Bruce Gombar remembers by drawing maps. Sitting in his Onslow County Economic Development office, the Gulf War Marine Corps battalion commander sketches quick drawings of the battlefield, those mine-littered miles along the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, as he describes what he lived through.

He draws troop formations, points out the path of the 2nd Marine Division and shows how his battalion, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, moved on the right flank.

Occasionally, Gombar will stumble over a detail, but he always gets it right in the end. He vividly recalls what units were with him and beneath him, the titles of various landmarks - Six Ring Road, Al Jabbar Airfield and the name of the one Marine in his command - Cpl. Victor Lake - who died in a tragic accident.

On Feb. 24, 1991, Operation Desert Sabre - the ground portion of the campaign - began in earnest. American and coalition troops moved into Kuwait, where the Iraqi army had built barricades and laid down minefields. Combat engineers either used line charges to blow alleys in the mined sand or had to remove them manually with mine-clearing tanks.

And the oil fields always burned, courtesy of retreating Iraqi forces. It took a shift in the wind for it to come your way, Gombar said, but when it did there was no escape. The black clouds, soot and grease obscured the sun so that midday became midnight. Marines had to find their way by other means.

"Everything had a black film, a greasy film over it," Gombar said. "The smoke and the soot from these oil wells had literally blotted out the sun. At one point in the afternoon, I needed a flashlight to read my map."

The largest battle Gombar's unit engaged in started in the dawn hours of the second day of fighting. Because of the time, Gombar calls it the "Reveille Engagement."

That morning, Predator, the call sign of Gombar's tank company commander, came over the radio with a stunning announcement.

"I've got tanks approaching from the north," Gombar recalls hearing, "too many to count."

The first job was to make sure they weren't friendlies. Predator was able to confirm they were enemy tanks.

"I said, 'Engage at will,' " Gombar said. "I forget how many tanks we killed. But we destroyed the lead battalion of a brigade that was coming down to reinforce Al Jabbar air field."

For three days, they barreled through the oil-stained desert, passing surrendered Iraqis who had thrown their weapons down, and fought them when they hadn't. It became obvious that the Iraqis "were trying to get out of Dodge," as Gombar put it. They drove along the infamous "Highway of Death," weaving between bombed out vehicles and people.

As quickly as the war started, it ended.

It's an experience that will always stay with him, Gombar said.

"It was unequivocally the highlight of my career," he said. "Having the privilege to command Marines in combat is the epitome of what being a Marine is about. I never felt as alive as I did then.

"It's hard to explain, because you never want to go off to war, but I was disappointed when it ended."

'Cloud of darkness'

While Swofford was a scout/sniper who saw combat, much of his book focuses on the other times: the waiting, worrying and questioning.

Retired Master Gunnery Sgt Brian Carey, a career Marine who was in Kuwait with the command element of the 2nd Marine Division, said fear of the unknown was a pervasive feeling as they ramped up to go. He remembers writing a letter to his father that said, "Hopefully one day I can sit next to you and read this."

"I told my wife, 'Everything's going to be OK,' but I didn't feel that way," he said. "You didn't know, so you had to go off with the sense of worst-case scenario."

The anxiety during the weeks of buildup before the war was also very real, when the conflict was still Operation Desert Shield.

"Looking back, other than infantry units, I don't believe the average Marine was as prepared to go to combat, more mentally than physically," said Carey, who now works for Marine Federal Credit Union. "It was a mental challenge. I left having full faith and confidence in our leaders, but never having been exposed to combat prior to this, there was this cloud of darkness inside."

He recalled a prank he pulled on one of the Marines beneath him: Carey told him he had been reassigned to an infantry unit.

"I watched him emotionally begin to collapse," he said.

It was a tough lesson, he said, but one that was needed to show that they needed to be ready. In fact, despite being in the rear with the commanding general, Maj. Gen. William Keys, Carey said he was constantly on edge. Bombs shook the ground and passing aircraft always brought unease. It was a constant state of alert.

"You watch every vehicle," he said.

Now 14 years later, Carey said he looks back on the Gulf War as a moment that confirmed his identity as a Marine. Seeing the celebration of the Kuwaiti people made it worthwhile for Carey.

"It was a turning point for me," he said. "I had an even stronger sense of belonging. That (tour of duty) was very rewarding because I had an actual hands-on opportunity to protect and see the rewards of that on the faces of those we assisted. I carried that back home with me and look at America in a whole new sense."

'Always skeptical'

Both Gombar and Carey said they might go see "Jarhead," but both expressed doubts that the movie would accurately describe what the Gulf War was like.

Gombar said movies about the Vietnam era, such as "Platoon" or "Apocalypse Now," weren't really accurate portrayals of what went on.

"I'll probably go see it," Gombar said. "But I'm always skeptical about those movies. They don't portray things accurately."

Carey said that "Full Metal Jacket" hit home for him, but most movies don't do the source material justice.

While he's not going to rush out to see it, Carey said if the movie is more than just an amusing time-filler and actually portrays a vivid account of the war, then it might be worth a look.

"I'm not into exploitation," he said. "If it's a great movie, if America takes something away from it other than entertainment, then that's great."

Contact staff writer Chris Mazzolini at cmazzolini@freedomenc.com or at 353-1171, Ext. 229.

Ellie

[yellowwing]

I predict that Jamie Foxx will steal the show as the hard charging Platoon Sergeant.

[LivinSoFree]

I think that chain of emails is interesting and rather telling in some ways. I will be interested to see, now that the movie is out, who seems to think it's an "accurate portrayal" and who doesn't. I have a sneaking suspicion that the responses will be a lot different from the Lance Corporals than it will be from the Majors and Colonels.