Oorah

No one really thinks about Veteran’s Day being part of the holiday season, but it is lumped in there. I really didn’t think about it, but I saw "Jarhead" last weekend, just in time for the occasion.

I thought it was a good, but I never like to give my opinion on films like this. Sure I can be entertained by it, but I always feel because I have never been involved in the military, who am I to really say the value of this kind of movie. I do think it gives you an appreciation for what these guys do, as anti-war as the film may be. What I really pulled from the movie came from those in the theater with me. People yawned out loud, said they were bored, and some even left.

The couple in the theater before my girlfriend and me arrived were the only one’s there. Though it could have seemed they were a May/December relationship, we settled on father/daughter after hearing some of their conversation. He was a Marine about the age of my father. I’m sure, just like good ol’ dad he still wasn’t wearing a uniform everyday, but once a Marine, always. Since he was about my father’s age, I placed him from the Vietnam era. He wasn’t talking about conflict or battles he saw, people he killed or buddies who died, just basics like training and flying in helicopters. She kept her interest on him like every word meant something. It was a good feeling to see a girl twenty-five to thirty-years-old taking such an interest. Then the lights went down, previews began, and soon a drill sergeant started calling a green soldier a fucking piece of dog shit and slammed his face into a chalkboard.

It was a rough movie. I knew this from the commercial and this theory of mine was made concrete after I read the book. I told my own girlfriend, "You don’t have to go with me. This will be a very vulgar show." But Lin, being the trooper herself went and took it - never flinching. But when the scene on the screen was a not so intimate shot of a woman cheating on her husband which came after 45 minutes of very creative ways to degrade a human being, the daughter left her seat running. Her father, in turn, followed.

How can you be surprised a movie that’s rated "R" and about Marines in war is crude and vulgar? What were you expecting "Saving Private Ryan" again? Some said that movie was unsettling as well. There was nothing in the trailer suggesting "Jarhead" is about heroics or fighting the good fight. You are old enough to remember Desert Storm and realize the war was about oil and nothing else. And hopefully you are watching enough of your evening news to realize we are still fighting a war over oil to remind us of our previous venture in the Middle East. No matter what light you decide to show it in, your rose colored glasses won’t help you on this one.

After they left, there were people in the back yawning out loud, trying to be a disturbance. They were. It came across as disrespectful. This was a story based on a man’s memoir of this war and his experience there. It showed how fucked up life can be when you are trained to kill and not think twice, then placed in a desert to wait and perform for the cameras. It’s like watching the "Thin Red Line" and saying it sucked because you didn’t get it. I don’t think you are supposed to get it and should be glad you don’t have to. But you can still see enough to say thank God I didn’t have to do this. I stayed home and watched from my own home. And I appreciate those people that allowed me to do that. You don’t have to have cancer to see how bad it sucks, and you don’t have to be a combat vet to see the shit these men go through sucks too.

So on this day, shut your mouth, or cum receptacle as they say, and thank a vet. You more than likely wouldn’t be here if they weren’t there. Oorah.