Jarhead

It looks really good and I wanna see it.

I am failing to see whats so special about it. They are incredibly bored, they want to fight, and they want to go home. They get 2 out of 3. Not getting a chance to kill people is NOT emotionally shattering.

The point you are missing, is that these guys were told that they were sent over to the desert to accomplish a mission and do good. The military brainwashes these men into becoming ruthless, heartless animals. They are training in 110-120 degree whether, for an enemy that they are supposed to be stopping, but when time comes to fight this enemy, nothing happens. They spend a year away from their friends and family. While time slowly passes though the desert heat, back home the world continues as normal.

So they accoplished nothing at all. Then everything that they wanted to return home to see, wasn't there.

Swoffard went in there being skeptical of the whole military idea, and didn't even want to join, but he had no choice. Time over there changed him completely. And to top it off, the girl that he loved left him for another guy while he was away. Which probably wouldn't have happened in his mind if he wouldn't have been over there. That girl was the only real thing he had left to come home too. His mother was crazy, father gone, sister in a mental hospital.

I completely agree with you that these men don't go through what soldiers of ,lets use the example of WWII, go though. But in something like WWII, the entire nation was involved in the war effort. So every girl's husband or boyfriend was over seas. And everyone's daily life revolved around the war. And everyone had to contribute. Something like this is totally different. A select few men are sent over there (most who don't want to be), and everyone back home doesn't even notice let alone care.

If you have read any of the anti Iraq posts on here, you'll know that I am one of the most outspoken contributors. But I have not let those views get in the way of how I feel about these soldiers.

It is when all you've been doing for the last year and a half is to take someones life then you get sent to the desert to make scorpions fight each other.

So its so bad that they did nothing for a year. This is because the war ended quicker than the people in Washington thought. As opposed to their actually being some resistance by they enemy and prolonging the war. Meaning that they could have ended up being there for more than 200-some-odd-days.

They were trained for combat, but they weren't needed after all. I really don't see the problem here.

So Swoffard was skeptical about joining the army. It's a volunteer job. He wasn't forced to do anything. If he was so worried about his life back home, he shouldn't have joined to begin with. What did he (they for that matter) expect?

They joined the military, went overseas for a reasonable amount of time, life changed when they returned. I really don't see the problem there either.

World War II is in all honesty an unfair comparison. The circumstances with Gulf War are radically different on many levels. Kind of an apples and oranges thing. And who said anything about being for or anti war?

It just seems to me that the dilemmas confronted by this move are rather trivial and mundane. I know those people had issues in their situation, but I just kept thinking "yeah...and?" They had hardships after they VOLUNTEERED to join the Marines. You assume any risk when you sign on the dotted line. I still really don't see the problem.

I should correct that statement, swoffard had 2 choices, join the military, or work some minimum wage job somewhere and remain a piece of shit forever. Bro i don't know how old you are, but when I was back in high school, recruiters called my house on a weekly basis, trying to get me to join the military. They would tell me all kinds of bullshit of how I wouldn't be sent overseas. And how I wouldn't have to do much at all, and they would pay for college. right? They butter this shit up, and kids who don't really have a chance to go to college due to financial reasons are the perfect candidates. Swoffard was a piece of shit. He was given 2 options, stay a piece of shit forever, or try to make something out of himself.

I played lacrosse with a guy in highschool who signed up for the army, cause his parents got divorced and he wouldn't be able to go to college. He thought he was just going to be cleaning up after disasters and stuff in good old USA, cause thats what the recruiter told him. Soon enough he got sent to Iraq. Came back 4 months ago... hit in the leg.
He'll be ok, but he was not expecting that. The military takes advantage of these kids man.

And the reason why I mentioned WWII was because you said:
"I would find the situation a little more difficult for people that actually do have to kill or be killed. You know, the ones that actually end up doing something. What do you think would be more taxing on the human mind? Killing people and watching others around you die, or waiting in a base camp for 200 days doing nothing?"
And yes I agree with you. That would be more mentally taxing than what these soldiers did.

The best analogy I can think of to describe what happened to these guys is:
Recieving a scholarship to abroad. Leaving everything behind to go to Europe to take 2 semesters worth of courses for you're major only to find out that the university does acredit the place where you studied overseas anymore.
Then returning home, without any academic credit, to find that everything you cared about is gone.

I know more about this than you think. I'm 19. I've had my share of inquires from the military recruiters.

My dad grew up in a poor ass farm town. His parents had nowhere near enough money to pay for a college education. My dad wanted a university education. The only way he could get it was to sign up with the army. He was NOT suckered by vague promises offered up by recruiters, he knew that this was his best shot at a high education. He then went strait to basic training. Four years later he graduated from CU Boulder. He was then sent to Germany and stationed there for several years. Then the war in Vietnam broke out. He was a ranger in the bush for two years. He came back to a country that showed contempt for the solders that served in the US army. As it turned out my dad cards were played fairly well...but the same couldn't be said for many.

Don't act like this is news to me. I don't care what spin you put on it, the portrayal in Jarheads is nothing compared to what people like my father and thousands of others have experienced, regardless of what war. The scenario in Jarheads is practically nothing. Ho hum.

"cause his parents got divorced and he wouldn't be able to go to college"

what do his parents have to do with him going to college?

well, their happy little family didn't want anything to do with eachother anymore. He was left hung out to dry. His dad didn't want to see any of them again, and his mom told him to go out and get a job and make it on his own. How the hell could he afford to live and go to college???

I attend the university of pittsburgh here in PA. I have 16 credits this semester, and I also work a part time job. Even my part time job, and taking a school loan, there is no way I could survive here with out help from my parents. And for that I am very thankful. This kid had nothing man, and nothing is scarier than going out trying to do something as big as that without any support. Or anything to fall back on. Not only that, he would've had to find temporary housing like between semesters and between years. Family cut him loose, how can you say he'll be fine?

ya but i already know what goes on in war, from common sense, family stories and other documentry movies.

I wanted action and killing, not some dude burning shit for punishment

See thats where you're missing the point. The movie showed what happens to these guys without war. I mean it wasn't really war. By definition it was a 4 day "military police action". It showed how the military altered their lives forever and nothing was accomplished and everything was gone when they returned home.

Like swoffard said, no matter what he did with his hands for the rest of his life, that rifle would always be there.

If there wasn't so many naked men I would have liked the movie.

ya and im saying anyone with 1/64th of a brain could figure out what soldiers go through.

or maybe just being in a similat situation such as football taking over my life has opend my mind to how others in groups perform and work together.

but im saying i know what the movie tried to portray, but this was already known by me and i found it boring.

i heard its pretty much liberal propoganda.

Yes so are so right, Michael Moore is secretly behind it. I guess he figured "Jarhead" was a better title than "Fahrenheit 912". Rush Limbaugh told me that the other day. If Rush says it it has to be true, right?


Why the hell did you bring politics in here? The book and movie are about a true story. We're tlking about the soldiers, nothing else.

I rarely say this, but I agree with d-loc.

Quinny,

You missed the whole point of the movie. The idea behind it was that these guys went over there to fight a war. Suffered through all the days as though they were in combat. Suffered all the same hardships minus the casulties. They wondered every day if they were going in to combat and going to be killed, their girls left them, their families moved on, the war was fought.

In the end, most of these soldiers never got to fight but still took the emotional baggage of combat home with them. Many of them are still left today with the aftermath of being in that war. Many of them feel as though they suffered these hardships and didn't even get to serve as soldiers.

Jarhead is about the hollow feelings of going to war, suffering as though you fought, but never seeing combat.


Maybe you just didn't like it, but it seems like you just missed the point.

ya exactly, but i knew all this before i spent my $10 to have some dude display it to me on a screen with a horrible actor Jamie Foxx.

so basically we are trying to say this is common knowledge of anyone that has a brain. and i didnt need to spend money on something so easy to figure out.

...and?

All they are is one peg short of what many others did. Whats so special about it? The didn't get to fight, but they got all the baggage that comes with being in the military, minus the fighting part. Doesn't logic suggest that this is what would happen? I do not see why thats so special.

I wasn't implying that it was special, just thought that the concept may have missed you.

I really liked the movie, parts of it were excellent (watching the deer hunter part made me sooo sick to my stomach to think what that would be like).

You didn't like the movie, I'm not trying to tell you that you have to.

It was a side of the story that hasn't been told before, that's all I was saying.

Its not that I didn't like the movie. I'm indifferent to it. As I said in my very first post, "I seriously didn't walk away from that movie with anything." All in all it was nothing new to me, and thus I think it was rather bland.