Went down like a log

Oh man, was I tired last night. I can honestly confess, that last night was the first time in something like two weeks, since I've been able to actually get some sleep. Most of the nights during the last weeks, I've just been up all night watching the TV. The good thing about some of the Swedish channels is, that they pretty much work like cable: you've got programs running all night.

Anyway, I've been reading more of A. Swofford's Jarhead, again. I can't say that the book's that great at all - mediocre at best with all of the pure BS and over-the-top exaggerations. At times, it rather seems like Mr. Swofford has been experiencing severe mental health problems, and has even been able to make it in the Marines on the side. The general message of the book is very clear to me: Swofford's trying to tell the outside world, how the USMC - AKA "The Suck" - traps young boys inside its' gaping bowels and turns them into mindless killers who'll do nothing more than what the government wants - for reasons they don't quite understand themselves. To me, it rather seems like Swofford's place shouldn't have been in the Marines in the first place: he should've probably joined his sister in the quiet and idyllic mental institutions he spends so much time writing about on the book.

Still, though, I'm not saying that all of his stories in the book are lies. What I'm saying is, that most of his stories have been "painted with the broad brush", giving them the similar shock value and controversial content that usually make successful books about this subject. Sometimes, though, such stories are revealed to contain holes in them: and it rather seems, that stories like these are especially appt on having them.

All in all, I consider Jarhead to be an interesting analogy of a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if his physical condition (apparently) was enough to sustain the strains of war and the USMC doctrine, his mental condition surely wasn't. The book, through Swofford, also speaks of double morals: the author constantly worries about his girlfriend's possible infidelity, but it rather seems like the feeling's very much mutual - in other words, all he should be worrying about is his own faithfulness to his lover. I'll have to remark, that if all the psychological trouble and constant pressure that Swofford (supposedly) endured over there would've been transformed into actual motivation and actions instead of words, then perhaps he would've actually done something concrete instead of all that useless bitching and moaning.

My advice to anyone reading this title is, that whatever you do, don't believe even half of the stuff it's telling you. Even if the title certainly illustrates the 1991 Gulf War quite correctly from the soldier's viewpoint, by portraying the loneliness and the small-scale actions, it's still a rather questionable piece of work.