Jarheads and Rats

Today's the Jarhead DVD release date. The film's based on Anthony "Tony" Swofford's 260-page memoir Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles (2003). I like both, but the movie is better in the manner that Wonder Boys is better than the Michael Chabon novel. A rare thing, but it happens. Swofford's book is wildly insightful about the world of men, particularly men bound together in a prison-like term of service, but it's a little ragged in parts. Apparently, most editors don't edit books like they used to. The movie is easier, more exciting with sharp images and good acting by Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Jamie Foxx, and nice directorial touches by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1999). Basically, the first two Marines become snipers and suffer through frustration and rage while waiting to be sent through the desert to fight Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Effective cinematography and period music helps carry Jarhead through. It's more of a character study than a straight narrative story. There's a great scene of the Jarheads advancing through burning oil fields so black it appears as night, and clever use of the always-catchy Public Enemy ditty, "Fight the Power."

I can relate to this film: even without the backdrop of war, men pressed together under harsh discipline are not exactly kind or good, nor particularly civilized. Six months at the Virginia Military Institute was more than enough for me. After that experience, I prefer dealing with people -- men or women -- only in small groups or one-to-one. Bigger groups tend to fall to the lowest common denominator in my experience, bringing out various neuroses and cruelties sizzling with insecurity and sometimes awful behavior. Perhaps not as bad as a lynch mob or the My Lai Massacre, but moving in that direction. I'm glad that women fought their way into the military academies, certainly. Now women can be "Rats" and "Plebes" and "Knobs" just like men!

Here's a real Marines sticker. I've seen slight variations on the wording over the years, but you get the gist. Now, here's to some more peace and sublimation!