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hydrate and wait My brother sent an mail to the family this morning saying that all is well with him or as well as can be expected when one is near Iraq. Speaking of war, here is what I sent to a friend of mine about the movie Jarhead. War in film has been depicted many times and to this day Full Metal Jacket says almost all that needs to be said. That film and Apocalypse Now overshadow anything else in that genre. Jarhead as you pointed out does not reach those heights, but at the same time I felt gave a nice slice of life of what your average Marine would experience in the Corps. Having three cousins who enlisted in the Marines and a couple of friends who also served, most of what I saw in the movie was nothing new for me. Seeing the board of photos with unfaithful girlfriends / wives may have been a first on the screen though. War is boredom punctuated with moments of terror. For me that message came across without any hint of ambiguity. Seeing them hydrate and wait is so real from what my sister told me of her time in Iraq. Most of the time they are just sitting around wondering what is happening back in the world. Plus they have so little control over what they can and not do. The contract that they sign has reduced them to government property. Moral questions have to be set aside. What my one Marine friend told me is that so often they are trained to do a job and then they never get to do it. That was illustrated so well, by our hero and his spotter being told not to take the shot when they are sent on their sniping mission. Their frustration makes sense in a way. They are almost gentleman wanting to duel in a world where war is fought at a distance. Coordinates are given and death is delivered. There is no contact. There is no face to face confrontation. It becomes a video game. Before I saw the movie, I had concerns when I saw that Sam Mendes was involved. I loathe the movie American Beauty and know that it is nothing more than a case of the emperor's new clothes. I did not have that feeling at all with Jarhead. It felt true to me and didn't wallow in face slapping social and or political commentary. |