The Education of 3 American Wars

American society has had war with the Middle East repeatedly over the past twenty years. Such events spawn many emotions, and provide a means for civilians to see into the structure of the American Military. Wars generate ideas for movies, and are foundational for gifted writers in that they provide a decent story to tell. Writers such as Jason Christopher Hartley and Kayla Williams are among the many that look at war as a literary opportunity, and directors such as Sam Mendes see war as a means for melodramatic production (with a hint of comedy of course).

The content of Williams' book comes from her experience of the second Iraq War, and Hartley's comes from the same. Jarhead is a melodramatic portrayal of the first Iraq war's "Operation Desert Shield." However, whenever dealing with war as a foundational topic, writers tend to have overlapping themes, regardless of the story's angle. For instance, Williams' Love My Rifle More Than You, Hartley's Just Another Soldier and Mendes' rendition of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead all feature the theme of female objectification, a general disregard for rank, and convey an altruistic view of a "real" soldiers personality. This is because war itself usually features these themes, and so any and every soldier, war literary, or military-melodrama director, must, at some point, cross these themes in order to fulfill their duty of telling an accurate war story.

In terms of female objectification, Williams opens her book with a bold and outlandish statement. She talks about how she occasionally wakes up reminding herself that she is not a slut (Williams 13). Following this brash and captivating statement, Williams explains that in the military women are either bitches or sluts. The social rules of the military define a woman as a slut if she caves into a soldier's pursuit for intimacy. These same rules define a woman as a bitch if she chooses not to give in to a soldier (Williams 14). Hartley touches on this mentality by discussing how grunts (infantry soldiers) only want to fornicate and to fight, causing women to serve as a mere distraction (Hartley 93). Swofford covers female objectification through the military's fictional Jodie. Jodie is the name soldier's give to the man a soldier's girlfriend is cheating on him with. Any time the main character of Jarhead would mention his girlfriend, his friends would begin to tease him about "Jodie." Also, whenever a soldier would show his girlfriend's picture to his friends, they would comment that they would use their mental image of the photograph as pornographic material for aiding in self satisfaction, or they would comment negatively on her appearance (Jarhead).

Hartley, does however, try to provide his audience with a reasonable explanation for his assessment on women in the infantry. He outlines that a woman as a foot soldier is impractical because harsh living conditions and poor means for hygiene can cause a menstruating woman to contract a yeast infection, which is virtually untreatable in the field. He reasons that a woman (unlike a man) is susceptible to rape, especially if she is captured. He also talks about a pregnant grunt being unable to do the things necessary to take care of herself, and he also mentions that a woman's breasts are problematic for armor, gear, and low crawling. Although these things may be true, Kayla Williams tends to believe differently (Hartley 95).

Williams does not take a feminist view on the situation. She does not offer a view that woman are smarter or tougher than men, a view commonly stated by feminist soldiers. She is genuinely upset that women are objectified because in her mind women are people. Her theory is that men and women are equal, militarily or otherwise. She states that women are just as corruptible as men. She says that women are just as competent, and just as likely to make a mistake. Williams is telling her audience, very omnisciently, that women and men are equal, allowing the reader to deduce that the objectification of women and the "reasoning" of women out of infantry work is sexist and wrong (Williams 15).

One of the most qualifying factors for reality in her book is that her writing is consistent with who she is. She writes with an attitude to compliment her behavior. This style of writing is qualifying because in allowing her personality to seep into her writing she is preventing a "lost in translation" factor that would make her book non-realistic. Through her writing we can visualize her personality well enough to imagine the scene she is painting for us, making the book more appealing, thusly easier to comprehend.

Hartley matches this by allowing his book to be a memoir. He kept a journal while he was at war, and essentially he has published that journal. This gives the audience insight into his private thoughts and feelings during his tour in Iraq, giving the audience an accurate sense as to mentality of soldiers in Iraq. His memoir speaks of his personal experiences, and since it is a journal, everything that happens is seen through Hartley's eyes, and thusly, Hartley's perception. This style of writing gives the reader a collaborative point of view of both third person and first person. We see the story in its entirety, with vignettes of first hand perspective.

Mendes tells Swofford's story through a movie. His writing is a screenplay, so the images are painted for us, with little imagination required. His movie, however, spawns from the memoirs of former Marine Anthony Swofford. The movie itself takes a third person perspective on Swafford's account of his experience in Desert Shield. Mendes takes the accounts of the different events Swofford wrote about, and recreated them so that they could be played back and give the reader a strong sense of military life in the field.

Jarhead covers this topic most blatantly. There are several instances in which the group of characters lacks the proper respect for their superiors. Disrespect is seen first when Jake Gyllenhaal's character Anthony Swofford, is still in boot camp. Swofford has to draw a map for the drill sergeant who comments that the map is not well drawn. Swofford comments that he thought his job as a scribe was to write not draw for his superiors. The sergeant then forces him to his knees and repeatedly strikes his head, preventing Swofford from being able to think straight. He conveys his inability to think to the drills sergeant who comments that Swofford needs to get used to thinking under difficult conditions, and then asks Swofford what he was doing in the military. Swofford disrespectfully replies that he got lost on his way to college (Jarhead). A second instance of disrespect within the film would be when the group was to be interviewed in Iraq by an American reporter. They deliberately humiliate their Staff Sergeant by allowing a football game to result in a portrayal of homosexual intercourse on the field on which they were playing.

Kayla Williams' Love My Rifle More Than You also contains subordinate disrespect for superiors. Much of the disrespect is written by Williams after events in the story, but some of the events themselves also deal with her being disrespectful. For example, she uses respect to move SSG Moss to tears. In the book, SSG Moss approaches Williams and says that she feels that their level of communication insufficient and too impersonal. Williams responds according to military standards (Yes sergeant, no sergeant etc.) and refuses to allow the conversation to become more personal. When Moss explicitly requests for Williams to be at ease, Williams refuses to listen and reduces SSG Moss to tears. This situation stems from Williams' belief that SSG Moss should not have been her superior and so she resorts to mocking 'the system' in order to assert her superiority. Williams then goes on to say that a soldier should never cry in front of a subordinate, and a female soldier should especially bear this in mind.

In Jason Christopher Hartley's Just Another Soldier, Hartley mentions the concept of the presentation of coins. Coins in the military are a sign of great respect. There is a story within in the book of one about Hartley's companion Ray. Ray was one to play pranks on people, and he decided one day to play a prank on a general. Ray did not take the concept behind the presentation of coins seriously, so for him to present a coin to anybody would strictly be for the purposes of mocking. There is an event in the story in which Ray finds himself face to face with a general. He then drops a sack of coins he owns and sifts through it to find an unelaborated coin to present to the general. Expecting to achieve a comical reaction from his colleagues, he is astounded (and guilt-ridden) when the general grows emotional and takes the coin as a humble but great sign of respect from lower-ranking soldiers. Not wanting to deliver the punch-line at this point, Ray decides to let the joke run on, and has a decent laugh with his colleagues throughout a very emotional and "from the heart" speech the general makes at a dinner later on (Hartley 56).

Every war deals with these three themes (as well as many more). It is possible that the nature of war is brings these themes to the forefront of human nature. Emotional stress and trauma that a soldier would endure during war could be the reasoning behind overlapping themes of human nature in war. Jarhead, Just Another Soldier, Love My Rifle More Than You are three war accounts from recent time in which we see that war and individual personalities often combine in a way to influence soldiers to behave somewhat out of character for reasons of rank, and gender. These three accounts are also written (if even by extension) by soldiers who were deployed to Iraq and had to deal with the psychological pressures of war, thusly inherently providing their audiences with an untainted view of a soldier at war.

Works Cited

Hartley, Jason Christopher. Just Another Soldier. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Jarhead. Dir. Sam Mendes. Perf. Jake Gyllenhaal, Scott MacDonald, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2005.

Williams, Kayla. Love My Rifle More Than You. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.