Reflections on The Suck

I'm sitting here watching the movie Jarhead on DVD. For once, it is nice to see a portrayal of Marines that paints a fairly accurate picture of life in The Suck (yes, that is a real expression) and certain aspects of Gulf War I. In Swofford and his fellow leathernecks, I see Marines I served with at Camp Lejuene, classmates at MCSSS and fellow recruits at MCRD. Most surprisingly, Jamie Foxx portrayed a convincing staff sergeant. I've known, worked for, and been pissed off at Gunnys and Staff Sergeants not unlike Foxx's SSgt Sykes. In terms of characterization, this was probably the most "real" Corps movie I've ever seen.

The uniforms were right, the gear was correct, the haircuts were authentic and the language was spot on. And best of all – I didn't see any DevilDogs referring to each other as "Soldier," sporting 7 inch haircuts or screwed up, below the elbow folds on their uniform sleeves. Someone was paying attention to detail.

Further, I could relate most to the Gulf War portion of the film. The long, anxious trip over on Tower Air, those GP tents we called home for months, the ever present gasmask attached to the hip, sandbags, sandbags, and more fucking sandbags. I must have filled a few thousand bags myself. And, of course, all that bottled water. Damn we had to drink a lot of water – and yes, we were ordered to do so and frequently nagged about it. Falling out from dehydration was not an option, nor an accident.

I was especially pleased to see that the film didn't gloss over the fact that the the Corps was equipped with shoddy, old and generally unserviceable gear. The hand-me-down 782 gear, fucked up radios, ancient flak jackets and unserviceable NBC gear. If there had been large-scale, successful deployments of chemical weapons against our forces and our allies, the casualties would have been enormous. And some of our troops were deployed with that same faulty NBC gear in 2003 in Iraq – on the basis that we had to stop Saddam from gassing little Biff and Buffy in their pleasant suburban homes. Disgraceful – but that's another rant for another day.

And, unfortunately, I know all about burning buckets of human waste. That was probably the nastiest duty I was ever assigned during my time in uniform. Unlike Swofford, it was just my turn, and not part of any non-judicial punishment. While I was not attached to a combat unit in the Gulf, I can relate to much of Swofford's experience and feelings, as my unit was right up there on the Saudi/Kuwait border with Swofford's unit. There were long nights compounded by command decisions that made no sense at the time, scary perimeter bunker postings, guard duty assignments in the middle of a sandstorm, and a lot of time spent on edge, wondering when "it" was going to happen. At time, I didn't question it, but today I wonder how many of those damned sandbags were filled out of necessity vs. make-work projects to keep our minds and bodies occupied.

As a observation and electronic memoir, the movie fulfilled its function. I'm left impressed at the attention to detail and willingness of the production company to stay true to Swofford's observations. A lot of shit I forgot, some good, some not, has come back to memory. I'll likely be thinking about it for a while. Like Swofford, the gung-ho, nervous, and slightly skeptical nineteen year-old lance corporal I was then is long gone. He's been replaced by a wiser, more melancholy thirty-five year old who cringes when he thinks about what could have happened so many times during that conflict. Hours spent at M.O.P.P. Level IV in suits not meant for such long periods, faulty and untested gasmasks, runaway Iraqi tanks charging our lightly armed compound with all the real firepower and both Marine Divisions positioned to our rear, chemical weapons alarms going off and a general nervousness about what was to come next.

Of course, given current events, it is hard not to think about those months in the desert. I avoid watching CNN, MSNBC or the Big Government Interventionist Warfare Chickenhawk Network also known as FOX News out of a desire not be bombarded with reports that treat warfare like a video game or spectator sport.  I don't need to be persuaded into supporting more killing, more lies and more insanely naive conservative predictions of magical solutions to problems that have persisted for decades.  And please – don't send me emails about what "we" must do and how necessary "our" interventionist wars are if the only uniform you've ever donned was for your high school football team.

Also like Swofford, I was never required to take a life in that conflict.

And I don't regret that for a second.