Rating: 
Summary: - a memoir written prematurely by an immature author
Review: I'm not a marine so you can't disregard my comments as being yet another "jarhead" trying to protect the corps.
I was offended by the lack of moral and ethical code (never mind the military code) this author confessed to breaking rather bluntly and seemingly without much remorse or benefit of enlightened hindsight that generally a memoir provides. By page two I was regretting the purchase when I read he had stolen military supplies and fellow marines' uniforms for resale profit (and drinking funds). Regardless of youth and immaturity, this author shocked me with his obvious lack of respect for the marine corp and his fellow marines - making me wonder why he even joined. I fully expected him to take his readers down a path of self-discovery and resulting maturity typical of the coming of age and memoir genres. Despite page two, I read the whole book hoping the author would somehow redeem himself by providing revealing, self-reflective passages that would allow us to perhaps forgive him for his long winded whining and supposedly "shocking" tabloid narrative that at times reached unsuccessfully for poetic images and force fed readers the old "mirage" metaphor over and over and over again. (Yes, you're in the desert and you're confused about your identity and your role there - we get it!)
Sadly, this was not the case. And the ending was ridiculously sudden and premature. A huge disappointment overall.
Rating: 
Summary: Overdone but largely authentic
Review: I served in Desert Storm, in the USMC infantry similar to Swofford. This is the first book on the subject that I could stand to read. Parts of it I hate because Swofford stole from fellow Marines (that makes him a scumbag more than a sniper) and he exagerrates (which means lies) a bit on the tales of drunken debauchery.
But . . . when he tones down a notch and writes about actual operations - he accounts ring very true and compelling. Further, I found a lot of his psychological insights and reflections on becoming a Marine very compelling. I felt like this book helped me verbalize my own very complex feelings about the war, our country, and manhood in our age. Swofford does capture the essence of serving in the Marine Corps in those years.
I recommend this book for Gulf War veterans and as a psychological history of this period.
Rating: 
Summary: hmmmm....
Review: Just like Swofford at the end of the war, I felt let both let down and exhilirated at the end of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: a funny fiction collection
Review: Anthony Swofford is a young man who made cash on the public's need for answers. Look how close the publisher released this book to the start of the gulf war, and while you're at it, check the military's records for the training of SWOFFORD, A as an offical member of any STA platoon on the west or east coasts aboard either Marine base. But you'd need to investigate, and not believe the words that are transposed through the text of his "made for the moment" memoir. Half the stories spoken to also were heard second fiddle from him as much Marine lore is past amoungst fellow Marines.
Lastly, the problem here is it is more of a view of his hindsight, hi look back, his fights with his muse over his past and his attempt to reconstruct it with beauty and present it for the largest shock value for monetary gain.
A true look at a true Marine...a Marine who graduate honor man out of parrisisland is the book from P. Chadz, as most other Marines will agree...at least the pictures prove the stories, and the stories hold one's attention for a much longer time..
Rating:
Summary: Ride of the Uncertain Valkyries
Review: tony swofford was a military brat who grew up to become a member of STA, a marine sniper unit; he was sent into active duty for Operation Desert Shield, which evolved into Desert Storm. swofford leaned more toward the intellectual and poetic than his fellow jarheads, who'd find him sitting on a truck bumper reading The Iliad in the midst of battle celebrations. swofford's views on war are obviously conflicted ' on one hand he immerses himself in the macho camaraderie of the corps (or, as the jarheads called it, the Suck), but at the same time he expresses bitterness toward the powers-that-be that declare the war, at the SAME time he and his crew end up feeling embittered and slightly cheated after Desert Storm ends, for their combat activity was negligible. swofford seems disappointed that he walked away from his marine experience bringing none of the baggage of a *real* war. THAT i found interesting. not so interesting were the tales of whoring and cheating and drinking and clashing with non-coms in bars. coppola already played that song in Apocalypse Now, and nothing in Jarhead surprises or horrifies more than the Suck of the vietnam war ala benjamin willard. i wish swofford had digressed more upon chemical warfare, immunizatations and subsequent swirling accusations surrounding Gulf War Syndrome and the strange profusion of DVTs in gulf war combatants.
Rating:
Summary: OK book for the non military reader.
Review: Swofford's book "Jarhead" will make Marine recruiters and parents of Marines cringe with his detailed "off duty" antics. As a former sailor in the US Navy I can relate to this as will other former military service members. Although well written, I feel that Mr.Swofford's philosophical ideals obout the Marine Corps and the Gulf war were not construed during his service time but rather after he was discharged as anyone who has served and has time to reflect what he has done while serving his country. I would recommend the book to people that have not been in the military but would caution them that Swofford's accounts of events are rather graphic and his languange "colorful". I don't believe any Marine officers would appreciate his view of the Marines.
Rating:
Summary: a lot of sniveling and whining in this book
Review: In all due honesty, I really didn't know if the author was a former member of the Marines or the former member of the Camp Fire Girls who got stuck at MacDonald's without any money. The amount of complaining, whining and sniveling in this book was simply astonishing. Never been a solider and least of all, a Marine, but is this a normal mental attitude? Do all Marines complains, whined and sniveled as this one did??For the "battlefield" memoir of the 1991 Gulf War, the book is rather tame. Sure, the writing is blunt but mostly he seem to be venting. Maybe this was the way the author is treating his anger management problem. I wondered as I read this book if Swofford forgot that the Marines was an all-volunteer forces since it he seem to give a picture that he was an inmate in some brutal Stalinist gulag. This is not to say that there were interesting spots along the book. There were and some parts of the book was actually quite interesting to know. But if Swofford and many of the reviewers before me thinks that writing a story of Marine who sounds like an unit crybaby make this a good book, I wondered how the Iraqis lost....?
Rating:
Summary: Total disgrace to all that have served
Review: This book totally disgusted me. This disgrace to the armed forces tells of his homicidal and suicidal acts (to bad the statue of limitations is up). I hope no reader believes this is normal military life. The only thing I found usefully about this book is that it made a good fire!
Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: The book is a coming of age story. As are many of the great books, but don't read it if you don't want a coming of age story. Anyone considering joining the USMC (as I am) should read this book. There is no question that it is honest. Early in the book a group of reporters come out to the desert to write about the Marines in Saudi Arabia. When the Marines they are writing about switch from a game of football to a "field f---" the reporters put down their pads and pens; Swoffard picks up where they left off. The book is rough, course, violent and cruel because that is the only way to be honest about the experience these young men went through at the request of their country. We continue to ask young men to go to the desert to kill and die. It may not be reasonable to expect everyone who votes for the war, or votes for someone who supports the war on terrorism to take up a rifle and man a post. But for those who can't or won't this book should be required reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book, regardless
Review: I've read something like 100 bad reviews on this book from active/former Marines. Most of these guys are picking on Swofford's details. All of them basically call him a 10%'er or outright liar. Too bad. I was not a 10%'er by any stretch of the imagination, or a liar. I served with both 3/7 and 2/7. I deployed to the same places, and humped the same gear as everyone else there. I even pissed my pants in Boot Camp, but under vastly different circumstances. I found that Swofford's book contains more truth than many of these former Marines will admit. Swofford misses on some details, but then he freely admits that he had to reconstruct some of the technical aspects of his experience, so I can forgive most of that. He also bends the truth in some places, which can also be excused. I don't think anyone's biography is a glittering example of the truth put to print, and to read Jarhead with this expectation is a mistake. The cussing, foul, drunken undisciplined madness is certainly a large part of the USMC infantry. Go ahead and lie to yourself, but it's the truth. Particularly in the rear, and even worse on deployment. Many of the Marines who gave bad reviews said, "never in my 'Corps!". Well, every honest Marine I served with would certainly tell you that the Marine Corps has changed over the years--and not always for the better. The Marines of today are not the same kinds of people that they were in the '40's, '50's or 60's, or any other decade. But the essence of the 'Corps has never changed. Infantry Marines have always, and always will be the toughest, best trained fighters there are. But they are also the greatest collection of misfits and oddballs you've ever seen or heard of. I saw and heard many of the things Swofford talks about. Some of that's not 'urban legend', but behaviors that repeated themselves throughout the 7th Marines. The basic problem with Swofford's book is that it will not make you feel good to read it. The reason these other Marines hate this book is because it is trying to deal with a question that Marines have been struggling with forever and ever. How can you love something so much, and equally hate it at the same time? No one's trying to take the 'Corps away from Marines that fought at Iwo Jima, or Chosin, or any one of the hundreds of other places soaked with jarhead blood. Swofford is not taking a crap on your honor or your diginity. I suspect he loved the 'corps every bit as much as anyone. He also, quite honestly, hated it. I would recommend this book for one reason, and one reason only. It is about 85% honest, with about 20% BS to make it readable. That is about 100% more honesty than you'll get anywhere else. If Swofford was 100% honest, then no one would want to read it but him and maybe the handful of buddies he had in STA 2/7.
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