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Summary: Is this a typical marine??
Review: I must admit I was surprised by this description of a marine's life. They live a very strange warrior's existence of alcohol, prostitutes and toughness bordering on the brutish. Don't buy this book if profanity shocks you. It is full of it. Something of a letdown when he finally gets to the gulf war. It is over before he does much. Doesn't really match up to some of the Viet Nam books/novels, one of the best being the autobiography - Chickenhawks.
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Summary: War through the eyes of a "Grunt"
Review: ... Now...comes Anthony Swofford who was a Marine scout/sniper in Gulf War One. Although he never killed an enemy soldier, his writing proves the dictum that combat is 90% hanging around hoping for something to happen and the rest of the time wishing it wasn't. Swofford cleverly shifts at random from his service in Kuwait back to his childhood and earlier service in the Corps and forward to his post GW1 life. It is a fact that 9 out of 10 of those in the military will never hear a shot fired in anger. It is also true that most of the casualties are borne by the infantry. After the first contact with the enemy the Grunt realizes that his future depends on pure luck. His fate is to be killed, wounded or possibly captured by the enemy. Once he reconciles himself to this he becomes a vicious fighter who sees getting through the day as getting a day closer to going home. ...It allows him to withstand the daily hardships and deprivation of the infantry. Swofford's short book reads quickly. Some will regard it was an unfair portrait of those serving in today's all-recruited military. Although the ground campaign in GW1 lasted but 4 days, I believe this book is an unblinking insight into some of what the young people in GW2 are going through today. ...
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Summary: Excellent example of a Marine's experience
Review: Having also served during that period in 1/8 STA, I can personally tell you that this book moved me from page one. Reading this book not only brings back memories of my unit but also reminds me of my own personal experiences. If Swoff hadn't written the book from his perspective, I would have thought it to be my own. From cover to cover, this book portrays all the experiences a young Marine goes through in a Victor unit. From the most fleeting thought to the greatest aspirations, Anthony Swofford has captured something intangible by most writers in this genre. This book tells a true story from a perspective unlike anything else.
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Summary: An OUTSTANDING view into Corps life
Review: I served in the Marines at roughly the same time as Swofford, although our "careers" took distinctly different paths. He was a STA-Platoon grunt with the 7th Marines, while I was a "pogue" (rear-echelon) armorer/ammo tech who did time with three separate units. Swofford was in the Gulf during Deserts Shield and Storm; the closest I got to the war was watching CNN in Southern California. At the time, I felt cheated and ashamed for being in the States - like I was left out of making history, and safe at home while other Marines were in harm's way. So, as soon as I heard about "Jarhead", I knew I had to read it. I was not disappointed.The Corps is a place where you rub shoulders with colorful individuals and see interesting places regardless of your job category, and Swofford's excellent story-telling skills took me back to that period with a sharp immediacy. This is a tribute to the author's writing style and no-holds-barred honesty, which are both exemplary. His descriptions of boot camp and the Fleet during that era are absolutely spot-on, and the extreme personalities he encountered are uncomfortably real archtypes of "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children." Of course, he shares a large number of lurid personal anecdotes, but that's the way things were (and probably still are) in the Corps. Indeed, Swofford does not sugarcoat the Corps as an institution, so don't expect an "ooh-rah" account of Marine Corps life. But he still finds humor in the midst of the headgames, while dealing with weightier philiosophical questions about the brutality of war. Anyone who was (or is) in the Corps's enlisted ranks will immediately identify with the author, regardless of their MOS. In addition, those seeking insight into the Marines who are currently fighting Saddam's legions will find "Jarhead" a compelling insider revelation. Swofford's story is not disrespectful to the Corps, but it is honest and real. He is to be commended for writing this important book.
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Summary: Thank you Mr. Swofford
Review: Jarhead really stirred my emotions. It made me think about war, killing, the fragility of the human psyche, and many other deep human issues. This book is one man's memoir, an honest and sometimes ambivilant look at the Marines and war. Most importantly though, Mr. Swofford opens up his thoughts, and in turn, himself, to the reader. Jarhead is such a personal and intimate story that you feel like you've been inside this guy's head to a certain degree; and sometimes it's painful. I'm glad that Mr. Swofford had the ability and the courage to write a book like this. I feel very thankful to him for putting himself out there like has. This book is important not so much as a document of war and life in the Marine Corps, but as a portrait of humanity, of a fellow "Gen X" American, a peer.
Rating: 
Summary: jarhead
Review: As opposed to all the multi-star reviews of recommendation from the book reviews, I fully agree with one posted reader review - This title (Jarhead) was ...! The book's cover referenced the Marines and their experiences during the conflict, however, the vast majority of the internal prose were about barroom and bedroom achievements - none of them particularly exciting and certainly not noteworthy. When purchasing this book, I was anticipating learning something noteworth, which certainly wasn't the case.
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Summary: Haunting and coarse, but a remarkably moving tribute
Review: Chroniclers of military life have always faced difficulties making their stories palatable for the tea-and-crumpets set. We all know that groups of young, hormone-enraged men--away from home for the first time, humiliated with abuse, trained to kill--sometimes behave no better than college fraternity brothers on a drunken rampage. Swofford's book of his experiences in the Marine Corps dispenses with the usual niceties of post-war military reporting and recounts his memories, warts and all, from recruitment through boot camp to the First Gulf War and "other battles" beyond. It's is not always pleasant reading, but it's vividly and trenchantly written. Particularly haunting are the description of the sickening wasteland created by aerial bombing, the portrayal of a fellow soldier who releases his frustration on enemy corpses, and the account of Swofford and his friends' atrocious behavior at a fellow veteran's funeral a few years after the war. But what's been equally as fascinating (to me, at least) has been reading the reactions to and reviews of this book, both in the press and on the Internet. In one corner, we have the veterans of earlier wars, who disparage the Gulf War as the military equivalent of a ballet, since nearly all the Desert Storm participants never saw "real combat." (Swofford himself acknowledges the "lack of satisfaction" such comparisons brought his peers: "the boredom, the fatigue, the rounds fired at fake, static targets, the nights of firewatch, and finally the letdown--all of these are frustrating and nearly unendurable facets of our war, our conflict. Did we fight? Was that combat?") Yet the wistful reminiscing of some of the older veterans, who somehow see the heroism of Gulf War veterans as a threat to their own war experiences, is troubling. It's true that Swofford himself didn't face hand-to-hand jungle combat, but he did see some action in this short war (including a friendly-fire incident that caused two deaths). And we all should be happy rather than bitter or jealous that the war ended so effortlessly for American troops. I, for one, don't think you require more exposure to violence to prove your "manhood." In the other corner are the readers who were correspondents or who served in the Gulf War. With the exception of one self-serving commentary (written, maybe not ironically, by a combatant from Task Force Ripper, the unit responsible for the friendly-fire incident), these readers seem to agree that this book has nailed it down: this is the military and the war they knew and fought and witnessed, unadorned and uncensored. They value the tales of camaraderie and discipline and Swofford's strong affection for his fellow grunts, despite (or perhaps because of) his conflicted feelings about serving. Then there are those outside the ring: the dismayed parents and friends and lovers of soldiers--all of whom seem shocked and appalled by the bathroom humor, the machismo posturing, the juvenile attitudes, the cavorting with prostitutes. Expecting perhaps a Reader's Digest guide to the Middle East conflict or the moral equivalent of the Boy Scout Handbook, these poor folks, understandably, just don't want to hear what Swofford has to tell them. All three audiences have valid objections, but it shouldn't diminish the value of the book for the remaining readers who (like me) will appreciate the candor and, yes, the bawdiness in this memoir. Some will find the book a celebration of violence; others will see it as "anti-war" or even disloyal, but this gulf of opinion merely reflects Swofford's own ambivalence, which becomes apparent near the close of the book: "Some wars are unavoidable and need well be fought, but this doesn't erase warfare's waste." Putting aside the author's unpolished political views (which comprise only a tiny portion of the book anyway), my only objection is that many of Swofford's fellow marines are as indistinguishable as their haircuts; I would have liked to have had a better sense of the men behind the uniforms. Overall, though, "Jarheads" stands as a moving and sincere tribute to our troops, as well as a eulogy on the universal ugliness, frequent futility, and occasional necessity of war.
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Summary: ...- Chronicle of a Marine Corps Screwup
Review: Unfortunately one of the Marine Corps worst went out and got an education so he could write a worthless book. Having Served in the Corps from 86-92 as a "Tanker", I really think he showed what the bottom of the barrel looked like. I served in Saudi and yes there was some factual information within this book although I think the hooch and depression Swofford had greatly [messed] up his perspective of the Corps in general. The best part of this book is his contempt for the pogues, isn't it ironic that he's become the king of them? The timing of this book with it's left coast slant is questionable. Don't waste your time or money on this book unless you're a psychology student wanting to have a look into a troubled youth's mind.
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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.
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