Good military movie

Rating: 9/10 (28 January 2007)

Being someone in the military, this movie had lots of moments that hit home. Being in the Navy, we (although we'd never admit it publicly) envy the Marine Corps and their tight-knit units. In the Navy, people are transferred as individuals and a Marine unit sticks together always, so they are much more like family..with goofy ways like a family and silly traditions. Marines are crazy, tough, hard-shelled teddy bears that have people they love fiercely and a cause they love even more. So this movie had many moments that, while revealing the absurdity of the war in the Gulf, brought a personal spin to it that CNN has just forgotten. For some reason, during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and pretty much every other war until Desert Storm, soldiers were called, well, SOLDIERS. Now that they're referred to as "troops", it takes so much personal care out of it that people don't think of our soldiers as humans with lives and loves of their own. Jarhead is a great movie for showing that even rock solid Marines are humans, too. His girlfriend, who he dreamed about and missed, left him while he was there, and that's something that almost every military couple has had to deal with..cheating, being cheated on, the fear of it, and that's a very real concern to young Marines, or Soldiers, or Sailors, or Airmen. The film has so many anti-climatic moments which make the viewer sort of antsy and unfulfilled, which is perfect because that's exactly how many of the characters were portrayed to feel. In a war with minimal violence but high "terror factor", exactly like the war that's going on now, service members are taught to "always be on the ready" but never get a chance to release that coiled tension. Other wars have been "kill, kill, kill" and these are "watch, watch, watch." People who are trained to kill tend to go a little loopy when they're not able to kill, which is captured perfectly in the scene in the tower where the main character has a perfect shot of the enemy lined up only to have the shot canceled in lieu of an air strike and his only "kill" is taken away from him. Sadistic, yes, but to be expected when people are trained for just that purpose. Many touching moments if you are in the military and understand that tight, delicate brotherhood you develop. The way the main character wore his dress uniform to go to his girlfriend's house when he returned home, in a desperate attempt to impress her and make her understand a tiny bit of what he was about, only to be shot down, a proud Marine defeated on the home turf... it was an incredibly touching moment to those of us who have been separated for months and months at a time and dreaded that very moment. All in all, an excellent "war" movie as it applies to the current "desert" wars...great characters and many poignant scenes. I would recommend highly to anyone in the military or related to a service member, but anyone else just might not "get it."