by Scott Albright
Daily Lobo
Despite the exaggerations depicted in most war movies, "Jarhead" portrays the culture of the Marine Corps fairly well. I know this because I was a Marine.
Being a machine gunner and having served two deployments in Iraq, I can say this movie represents the types of personalities inside the Corps.
The obscenities are a little extreme for most audiences, but the language used throughout the movie fits the Corps to a tee. A flashlight is a moonbeam, and a wall is a bulkhead. Every other word is usually a curse. A Marine is a jarhead, that is, a jar-shaped head or an empty vessel that knows only to respond instantaneously to orders.
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The movie, directed by Sam Mendes, is the story of a sniper named Anthony Swofford, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. It is based on Swofford's book of the same name which documents his exploits during the first Gulf War. It follows him as he leaves home, goes through boot camp, endures scout sniper training, and then sits in the desert for months waiting for a war in which he will never fire his weapon.
Although there is little war-time action, the movie moves rapidly and intertwines moments of bathroom humor with the drama of real world events. Other parts are a little outrageous and don't make sense to those who have military experience, particularly when Swofford and his spotter Troy, played by Peter Sarsgaard, return back from a useless mission to find a group of Marines dancing around a bonfire like a bunch of wild banshees. Not that it's uncommon for Marines to act like savages, but the fact that several scrawny-looking young men are shooting lightweight machine guns into the air one handed without any difficulty is just wrong. Yes, it can be done, but it's not that easy.
It's also worth mentioning that the lack of discipline displayed during this scene is extremely
uncommon for such highly trained fighting machines.
According to the film, snipers are crazy, and hazing does occur. Marines still operate in combat without flak jackets and helmets, but my personal experiences have shown this isn't as common as the movie leads the audience to believe. In my experience, machine gunners are the crazy ones. Scout snipers brand SS on their arms, not USMC as seen in the film, and Marines simply take the armor out of their flak jackets so it appears as if they're wearing them.
The leadership of Staff Sgt. Sykes, played by Jamie Foxx, depicts the mentality of the Marine Corps lifer wonderfully. The sense of pride and honor he has for his job and the Corps is a typical quality of most Marines who have been in for some time, although he was a little lax compared to the command I was under. Perhaps Mendes didn't want people to see how mean and stern Marines really are, or maybe Swofford just got lucky during his stint as a sniper.
"Jarhead" is worth seeing for those who don't mind a little gore and whole lot of foul language, but it's far less action packed then other war movies such as "Black Hawk Down," and doesn't match the dramatic quality of the television series "A Band of Brothers."
In any case, "Jarhead" gets my stamp of approval and a giant hoo-ah.
