JarheadA Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles

"War is hell… where do I sign up?"

A soldier long before he was an author, Kurt Vonnegut once observed that writing an anti-war book was as futile as writing an anti-glacier book. But maybe “futile” is too optimistic. In the early pages of Jarhead, Anthony Swofford recalls how he and his fellow Gulf War marine grunts absorbed every second of every anti-war movie they could find — Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, etc. — and got psyched up for their own chance to see some action. These are young dudes, 18 or 20. They think guns are cool. They like the idea of being in the shit, of screwing prostitutes, of having to stay alive under fucked up circumstances. Like the people who trained them, they are mean, cruel and sadistic. Jarhead is an unflinchingly detailed book, a personal memoir and a real-life ground-level peak into soldier culture. As a narrator and a confessor, Swofford is graphic and foul-mouthed, unapologetic but often mournful for his own lost innocence. It’s an utterly gripping and horrifying journey, made scarier still by the thought that some kid will come away from Jarhead wishing he could live it.