Comparing Anthony Swofford "Jarhead" to Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

"Thus what follows is neither true nor false but what I know."

- Anthony Swofford, Jarhead

Swofford is a marine and draws from the history of the core just like any institution draws from its past. The most recent events in popular memory are Vietnam which Swofford brings up with much bravado. Often by referencing movies or stories passed through the core. "And as a young man raised on the films of the Vietnam War, I want ammunition and alcohol and dope, I want to screw some whores and kill some Iraqi motherfuckers (Swofford, 7)." He continues this same line of thought, "Rape them all, kill them all, sell their oil, pillage their gold, sell their children into prostitution (Swofford, 17)." This generation wants an adventure, they have seen the madness wars produce on the big screen and have no time to wait for their own. They do not see it as a condition, but as something to strive for.

Of course how much of this is true is hard to ascertain. While there is much praise for this book it is also often criticized for being inaccurate. How do you tell the truth? A question which should be relatively easy to answer becomes very difficult when looking at persons fighting a war of the mind. Two marines can be in the same hole, taking cover from the same missiles, using gas masks to protect against the same chemical weapons and still come up with totally different stories of the events that took place.

If anything is true in this novel it is the opinions of Swofford; simply because his reasons to lie are limited. Granted at times the language becomes a bit poetic and the story seems a bit of a production the brass tacks remain true. You can taste the hurt not only at the war, but pre/post-war. He is telling the story of his life through the war. He was not in the gulf very long, but this novel spans his entire life using the war as a reference point for everything. "I am still in the desert (Swofford, 15)." He was not writing this novel from his office at St. Mary's College of California, he is writing in some hole in the desert next to his E-Tool, copies of heavy novels and letters from home while the other guys play grab ass above him.

Swofford varies in the level of detail at times and this seems natural until thinking about it. Who remembers what they were reading nearly ten years ago right before being shot at. Granted he could have kept a journal of some sort, but I would like to think he would bring that up as well. This is just a device to show how he fits in the with other marines. He is a reader and illustrates this in passing. Yet the facts seem real, the pants pissing, the crying, the fear, the hunger all framed with some fake details to take us their too. No one, but those marines will know everything that happened, and like I said they each will have two different accounts of the situation.

The only fakeness I get from the novel is the beginning and end. At the beginning it is just like a movie, the older tired soldier pulls his warrior gear from its box releasing memories from their slumber. Time has passed, but there is still sand in his map. A great way for a story to start, but in all honestly Swofford is a published author and a college professor. Vonnegut would tell us he was at his desk, or in his easy chair thinking about the war. He does not feel the need for such a production. Swofford has a picture he wants to paint, for every truth we get we have to see it through rose colored glasses.

O'Brien has the same effect, telling the truth through fiction. Maybe this says something about our views on the subject of truth, or maybe these guys are full of shit. Either way something of value comes through their work and feels true enough. We only need to think it true for it to work that way, "That's a true war story that never happened (O'Brien, 84)." War stories are always about something else, the war is on the surface. The war is only a setting, like the old west or the moon.

O'Brien and Swofford are often on the same page, Swofford being a writing professor surely has read O'Brien. Each author has different goals: O'Brien is taking us to the war - real or not; Swofford is remembering the war, his life, and how they mix. The chicken or the egg, how did I get in the suck? by Anthony Swofford.

"A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done (O'Brien, 68)." We can see this in Swofford, there is no moral. There is just a man and his memories standing in front a box filled with junk. The only value the junk has is to the man personally and to the owner of an army surplus store who will pay cash. This is where we are a society collecting small chunks of war.

As a soldier you become something new, remolded from softer parts into a tool for use in combat. You are still you in every sense of the word, but you also have a purpose. The rest of us on the planet are trying to figure out why we are here, and none of us know, except the soldier. They know what they were built for and what they can do. Maybe this is why the facts of the story are hard dig through. How can you get across your purpose to someone without one? Granted the guys in the suck did nothing but bitch and moan about their situation, but that is part of their function. You cannot train someone to kill and not give them something to be frustrated by. If everything went smoothly what would those guys do all the time? The suck is just a distraction from the war, busy work. Because if their minds aren't focused on burning shitters, or a woman back home then they are thinking about killing. After all isn't that what killers think about? This is why you have to frame these stores in fiction and in fact because the facts are party unknown to the soldier, can't see the forest for the trees. The gaps filled in by fiction for us may also be the same for the author. If you can't easily spread the truth then spread the next best thing. There isn't anything easy about spreading the truth. If there was then everyone would be doing it.

Right now in Iraq there is probably an American troop starting their story. They do not know that they are performing this task. Time will pass and memories will fade, but when the story is finally recorded it will not be done from the comfort of their homes, or on a new computer, but in some godforsaken hole, or bombed out building where the truth is coming at you all the time. You can't escape the truth when it is happening to you. You can't right after the fact, because you'll just be transported right back. Your own personal time machine. Maybe people don't get shell shock, maybe something sent them back. Sitting drinking coffee then one memory sends them into a war zone for a few seconds not their coffee is in their lap and they are crying. What else can you do when you realize you're never going to leave your war. It owns you. "You dumb cooze...It wasn't a war story. It was a love story."

Works Cited

Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead. New York: Scribner, 2003

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Random House Inc, 1998.