Rating: 
Summary: The real deal
Review: I served as a combat medic in the Gulf War. What Swofford has written is exactly what I loved - and hated - about the Marine Corps and the Gulf War. He doesn't pull any punches. Much of the book revolves around becoming a Marine (not so much about boot camp, but the experiences that change a "boot" to a "salt") and the long (long ...) wait before the ground war began. This works well. It gives the reader a sense of what the "real" Marine Corps is like, and the concerns, troubles and issues many of the young men and women face everyday in the military. The profanity, pranks and hard living are all accurate, as are the worries, tears and sense of esprit de corps between platoon members. Neither a recruiting tool nor anti-war propoganda, Swofford simply and eloquently tells it like it is (and was in 1990 - 1991.)His recollections of the ground war are similarly right on the mark. Since the actual assult to liberate Kuwait lasted only a few days, it makes sense that it should play a similarly minor role in the book. This, however, does not detract from the power of Swofford's words. In my opinion, it is among the best memoirs of war, and certainly the best account of the Gulf War I have read. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to understand what the Gulf or the Marine Corps was like.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype. This is trash!
Review: All the hype makes one believe that this is a unique first-person literary account of what it's really like to be a soldier in the Gulf War. In reality it is a trumped-up profane and highly exaggerated load of trash. Anthony Swofford is in dire need of help and it isn't because he served in that war. Making him some sort of after-the-fact hero for writing this tripe will only serve to make him even more sick. I pray that he is an aberration and that most of our soldiers are not godless, profane, psychotics that he portrays himself to be. If most of our soldiers are like him we are in serious trouble as a country. Unfortunately, I believe that the vulgarity and psychotic ramblings of this profane man are the very reasons the 'literary world' has embraced his garbage.
Rating:
Summary: Coming of Age in the Gulf War
Review: I think this book is a tour de force. Swoffie's writing is intense, very macho, and honest. He balances the cynicism and the idealism of Marine grunt life so perfectly, and he has a certain awareness of his own evolution as a man--but not too much! There's a "let-'er-rip" feeling to the story and the prose, masterfully modulated toward the end as he finishes on a deliciously ambiguous (and humorous, and self-effacing) note. A CHANGED Swoffie appears. The overall effect is neither prowar nor antiwar. It just looks warfare in the eye. I don't want to suggest this book is up there with Shakespearehere, but there are echoes of Hemingway's blunt, lucid style, as well as Whitman's great lists. I compare it to A Catcher in the Rye in many ways. (Higher praise I cannot give a book.) I've been all the more animated about JARHEAD since my wife read it, and laughed out loud, and shouted passages to me from the next room. I had thought it might be too raw for women to relate to, and most of the reviews emphasize this aspect. But (again as with Hemingway) there is a soft and more complicated side to this kid, who is after all playing a particular role for us here, and playing it to perfection. And writing it down, thank goodness.
Rating:
Summary: Could Not Put this Mother Down
Review: I am not a student of military history, nor have I been particularly interested in the US or any other armed forces. But I do appreciate good writing and storytelling, and let me tell you without a doubt Mr. Swofford will kick you in the butt with his lively narrative and insight. Now get this...Swofford is a guy who reads Celine in his spare time and otherwise is trained as a sniper. Wow! This book is too much, and I have read it now several times, with Fox News in the background. Good solid writing, funny and informative. Buy this!
Rating: 
Summary: Anthony Boudrain goes to Iraq
Review: Jarhead was a good read but he is just a little to much sometimes. He gives a great depiction of what it must be like to sit in a windy sandy desert for months not knowing when the war will start. He gives you a good feel of what the average life of a Marine is. The author was a sniper during Persian Gulf War 1 and I had never read a book on the affair so I was glad I read it.But don't get to excited.
Rating:
Summary: The Sadness of our Need
Review: "Jarhead," gives us a portrait of men at arms that is angry, well-written, and on the mark. As war stories go, "Jarhead" is right up there with the best of them. The Warrior is vain, foolhardy, courageous, prone to manic action or debilitating introspection, cruel, and sentimental. Be it Achilles or Anthony Swofford; be it the sands of Ilium or Iraq, the technology may change but the warrior remains the same, and this is a warrior's story. Anthony Swofford's literacy and self-awareness may have made him an oddity in the ranks, but in every other aspect he seems to have fit right in. "Jarhead," is the story of a boy who wanted to be a Marine, and who the Marines make into a man, albeit a man in extended adolescence - arguably the condition of every soldier, career or short-timer. The full title of this book is, "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles," and the fact is the "Other Battles," take up the majority of the book. As wars go, the Gulf War was short and sweet, and for the number of troops engaged very few saw actual combat. Mr. Swofford's experience was slight, but illuminating none the less. The "Other Battles," lead us to the war, and they were boot camp, training, and the interminable hurry up and wait of military life. "Jarhead" is more the making of a Marine than the Marine in combat. As it is, it's a book worth reading. You will come away knowing the mind of a young Marine, and you will understand the sadness inherent in our need for warriors.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but Baghdad Express Is Better
Review: Swofford is a competent writer, and he certainly situates us in the middle of the so-called front lines. But, as the events of the last week have so dramatically shown us, the front line is often less dangerous and far less vulnerable than the hundreds of miles of unprotected supply lines. Swofford, for all his you-are-there immediacy, doesn't bring us close to the real challenges faced by the majority of our troops. If you want a book as vital as today's headlines, check out Joel Turnipseed's *Baghdad Express.* Turnipseed was on the ground in Gulf War 1, but he was driving the trucks that carried supplies and ammunition, and he can tell you better than any CNN commentator how these big rigs can get lost and fall into enemy hands. And he can also explain the historical reasons why the Marines don't go more than fifty miles inland, the near-misses experienced as a result in 1991, and the imminent dangers that lie ahead. If you want images of burning oil wells and surrendering Iraqi soldiers, then maybe Swofford's book is for you. But if you want to understand where the first Gulf War was really won and know the stiff challenges we face today, then wait on this book, and buy *Baghdad Express* instead.
Rating:
Summary: In a word, outstanding!!!
Review: I got the book yesterday morning, and finished 12 hours later just before midnight...I just couldn't put it down. Swofford's book pulls back the "rose garden" of sexy uniforms and pomp and circumstance that is the Marine Corps myth, and exposes all the grit and grime that lies at the very heart of the Corps as an institution of war. I found myself nodding my head in agreement more than a few times...only another Marine (regardless of rank, MOS or duty status/active or reserve) can truly understand what he is talking about; if you have been at the POA on the yellow footprints, and earned the title at MCRD, Parris Island or even MCCDC Quantico this is a must read. Again, Swofford really brings it home in this powerful expose of the inner-workings of the Marine Corps, its collective mind, its groupthink and peculiar philosophical bent; as well as the Corps's lasting impression on those fateful few that have had the sad and glorious privilege to enter into the bastion walls of America's original warrior class.
Rating: 
Summary: Gritty memoir of life in the Marine Corps.
Review: This is a very difficult book to put down. Swofford writes with the flair of a novelist using language that is at times poetically vulgar. His depiction of a military life and his indoctrination to it alternate with painfully candid memories of childhood and family life.
Jarhead captures the military culture from the bottom up and records the day to day events of the life of a Marine leading up to the first Gulf War. The actual combat like the war itself seems almost anticlimactic after the tremendous buildup. His descriptions of the corpses of Iraqui soldiers that are seemingly everywhere at the close of the war are graphic and shocking.
Swofford has a great abilty to blend historical and factual experience with literary talent. This book will be considered a classic of the military memoir genre for years to come.
Reading this now as another war rages in the same terrain brings home the reality in a way that news broadcasts even with embedded reporters does not.
Swofford writes with the insights and skeptisism of an insider and does show the Corps. warts and all. However unlike some of the other reviewers I found nothing offensive in that. His writing also reveals an implicit pride in having been a Marine and an acknowlegement that the training and equipment of the US military is unsurpassed.
Rating:
Summary: A vivid depiction of war
Review: I'm a big fan of memoirs, and this is a great one. It is great due to the combination of an excellent story and the utter honesty of the storyteller. Swofford was a Marine on the front lines of the Gulf War in 1991, when he was just a very young man. His depiction of the fighting itself, as well as the training and anticipation before the fighting, is brutally honest and graphic. No details are spared for the faint of heart. Battle scenes are horrific, chaotic, and somewhat surreal, like scenes out of the movie "Apocalypse Now". The reader comes away with the impression that war is not at all glamorous or redeeming, but perhaps is sometimes a necessary evil. The quality of writing is excellent, and I look forward to Swofford's next book. Avery Z. Conner, author of "Fevers of the Mind".
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