Jarhead - The Movie

there have been similar calls in places for a disclaimer like that to be placed at the start of "Amongst the Marines"
 
Alright, I am going to war with all you who really hated this movies. I saw it for the first time last night with my neighbor who is also an OIF veteran. We were laughing our :cen: off at some of the deployment experiences.

I will admit a lot of the things that happened were way off, but that is the case for many war movies.

How many of you that have criticized this have ever been deployed in a combat zone for at least 6 months? How many of you have lived in a tent where, when you are in yout cot, you extend your arm and you hit your buddy sleeping next to you? How many of you have been to war? War is not exciting. It involves lots of guard duty, driving, and extreme boredom.

The things that were on point for me in this movie. All the girlfriends leaving the soldiers...Dead on! I think the Dear John letters started rolling in about month 2. Who ever said there are no Christmas hats on deployment, I will gladly e-mail a few of my picts from Iraq where many had them on. The boredom, oh the boredom. The little speal where boredom was described is 100% true. The stuff on "relieving" ones self in the latrine is also correct. In the begining, guys tried to hide it. In the end, it was as obvious as thumbing thru a "FM" and saying "there's my latrine queen" followed by a trip to the latrine. Do other soldiers razz people when the see picts of their girlfiends and wives, you bet your :cens: they do. Fat or pretty, every girl was talked about no matter what. OK, the parties were a bit out of control, but we had them. We also had alcohol. My squal leader, who was a former Marine, told me stories of taking apples, putting them in 5 gallon water cans and making some hard cider in Gulf War I. I have been on 2 deployments and there was plently of drinking to go around. I know some of you got pissed off at some of the almost homosexual acts portrayed in the movie. All I will say is that you will be amazed at some of the things that go on when soldiers get bored. Someone sent a guy a blow up doll. Lets just say I deleted those pictures before coming home.

I am going to stop for now. Jarhead describes what a true deployment is like better than any other military movie. Anyone who has spent 6 months in a combat zone in crappy :cens: conditions with combat arms soldiers will understand where I am coming from. For you who have never been deployed or deployed to cushy areas like FOB Speicher, FOB Anaconda, Bosnia or Kosovo after it was built up will never understand some of the things in this movie.

Jarhead is not perfect, but it is no POS like many of you have described it as.
 
Doody said:
How many of you that have criticized this have ever been deployed in a combat zone for at least 6 months? How many of you have lived in a tent where, when you are in yout cot, you extend your arm and you hit your buddy sleeping next to you? How many of you have been to war? War is not exciting. It involves lots of guard duty, driving, and extreme boredom.
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Been there, done it all. Several times. Looking at the profiles of most of the guys that didn't care for the movie, almost all have military serivce as well so I think you might be jumping on that soapbox a little too fast here, guy.

I can understand the frustration of dealing with comments from guys that have never done "it," but I see no reason to step on the toes of the guys that have and maybe even longer and more frequently than you.

I am going to stop for now. Jarhead describes what a true deployment is like better than any other military movie. Anyone who has spent 6 months in a combat zone in crappy :cens: conditions with combat arms soldiers will understand where I am coming from. For you who have never been deployed or deployed to cushy areas like FOB Speicher, FOB Anaconda, Bosnia or Kosovo after it was built up will never understand some of the things in this movie.
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Let's see, I've been deployed for more than 6 months in a combat zone more than a few gimes in very crappy conditions and yup, with fellow combat arms guys and not once have I ever had or participated homosexual rituals or several other acts portrayed in the movie. Maybe that's just how you guys worked, I don't know, but that certainly brings a whole new meaning to "unit cohesiviness" I guess. :p

But seriously, we can do some crazy things that would make most civilians look ****-headed and make their brains numb, but nothing as was depicted in the movie. The movie did not leave me with a feeling of guys goofing off, acting crazy, having fun and releasing stress, it left me with the feeling that I had just watched a homosexual rally.

Jarhead is not perfect, but it is no POS like many of you have described it as.
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I know exactly what deployments are like, I've been going on them for many years now, I know what crappy conditions are like, and I know all too well what combat is like.

So you liked the movie, great, you can relate to it, good for you. I personally didn't and none of my teammates did. I think it's just perspectives and the general feel the movie gives different people.

Yeah, there are some things in the movie that are deployment standards, the rest are based on exaggerated deployment tales and military folk lore (i.e., the video tape).

There's nothing covered in this movie that hasn't been in others. Combat Jacks, Dear Johns, etc (and yeah, we had Santa hats too.) I don't feel that it was original, and I don't believe that outside of the average generalities of deployment life that it depicted anything even remotely close. The inaccuracies are far too many to let slide.

All in all I thought it was a crappy movie based on a crappy book.
 
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Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. I thought it was a good movie myself. It might have been exaggerated, but think how(no offence meant here) boring it would have been with regular deployment life. I've never served and am the first one to admit it, but I can imagine that just sittin on a cot playin solitare might not have been too exciting of a movie. Hollywood is just trying to sell more stuff. I thought many parts of it were funny, and one doesn't have to relate to something in order to make it good...But really, the point is, would normal life in a war sit. have sold?
 
I thought the soldiers acting intense and boorish all the time was a little too much. Other than that it was interesting.
 
Did marines actually have scorpion fights? Can anyone confirm this or has seen it? Reminds me of that scene in enter the dragon where the chinese sailors are betting on the fighting mantises.
 
WarMachine said:
Did marines actually have scorpion fights? Can anyone confirm this or has seen it? Reminds me of that scene in enter the dragon where the chinese sailors are betting on the fighting mantises.
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Yes and yes.

It happened during Desert Storm and we still engage in death matches today.

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The ultimate cage death match!

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Bored, it wasn't a documentary, it was a hollywood movie. People should expect everything coming out of hollywood to be somewhat unrealistic or designed to be more entertaining.
 
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