Jarhead, every man fights his own war.
by Sabrina ~ September 10th, 2010. Filed under: Uncategorized.I’ve actually seen Jarhead in the past and don’t remember liking it as much as I did this time. I’m not sure if it’s because I may be “older and wiser” or just more knowing now that I’ve read the thoughts of Clausewitz, Einstein and Freud on the topic of war, but I definitely seemed to understand the story a lot more this time around. This film showed the toll war took on a few young men, though they were comparatively little exposed to it, and yet so traumatized. There was just so much to think about regarding the psyche of a soldier and the war he is sent to fight, which really interested and resonated with me.
I was instantly drawn to Anthony Swofford, his growth from an innocent man to a war driven individual, almost killing another marine after being demoted due to both their follies. I was even more intrigued by his spotter and fellow marine, Alan Troy, when he is so adamant to have his one “kill” that he nearly goes mad. Both instances really exemplify what Einstein sighted as the reason for war and the obedience from soldiers fighting them; “How is it these devices succeed so well in rousing men to such wild enthusiasm, even to sacrifice their lives?…Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state, it emerges only in unusual circumstances; but it is a comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis.”
I feel like the administrators of and superiors in a war play on this lust in curious ways, ways that dehumanize individuals and manipulate and mold them into common instruments of war, identified only by the dog tags that can later list them as numbers, casualties. The film really shows these ways in such scenes as when the snipers are taught their mantra–“This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. Without my rifle, I am nothing. Without me, my rifle is nothing,” and when the men are watching a war film and react wildly to the action sequences, and even more wildly when the loud speaker sounds “Get some marines, get some!”
Such moments are vivid reminders of the way the men are reduced to tools of war, and may they never forget it; “A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he’s finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son’s diaper; his hands remember the rifle.” So, yes men may be inherently driven to act in violence, but I think that political forces take advantage of that and compel them to act on these emotions and they can’t ever overcome them. I don’t think these men were particularly menacing, but I feel as if certain infamous soldiers at sites like My Lai and Guantanamo Bay were, and they were so malicious because the circumstances of their war and those leading it forced that behavior out of them. Freud even mentions that there countless moments in history that may serve as evidence of this lust that makes men act in criminal ways.
Therefore, I don’t know that I may be optimistic on the view that perhaps man may collectively turn to pacifism, though. There’s more evidence to the contrary so I think that it’s an ambitious thought that I don’t want to get my hopes up on. War isn’t just between states but one simultaneously fought within the minds of soldiers and that barely ever ends.
September 12th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Yeah, the “lust for hatred and destruction” is very important. Because of those latent feelings, I also believe that man as a whole won’t ever be able to become pacifist. War will always exist. We just can’t accept it as a natural way of life because “war puts an end to human lives that are full of hope” (Freud) and “brings individual men into humiliating situations” such as the torments faced by the marines in Jarhead.
I also liked how you said that the marines were “reduced to tools of war.” The rifle was mentioned a lot during the film and through all the merciless training and waiting, the marines sort of became rifles themselves, weapons simply used and then tossed aside by the ones in command.
September 14th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
This was my first time seeing Jarhead and though I have heard many war stories, seen many war movies, I have never seen a film or heard a story about the Marines in somewhat present day war. The gulf war took place about two decades ago which to me seems pretty recent and seeing what the Marines went through there showed how intense and mind numbing the military can be. As Sabrina said “men reduced to tools of war” I could not help but be taken back by this thought. Americans, you, me, our neighbors and family members could at any time join the military and be turned into these tools of war. This concept is hard to grasp because living in a free nation where so much is promised it never usually dawns on people what the military actually does to a person in order to keeps these rights and claim ourselves as a free independent nation.
I found Jarhead really portrayed this concept of men becoming tools of war an it really opened my mind to the sacrifices men take to help and serve the people of their nation.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
One of my favorite scenes in this film is when the Marines are herded into the auditorium to watch “Apocalypse Now” because the transformation of the lust for hatred and destruction from latent to manifest is so obvious. It’s incredible how effectively simple footage of the American air strike on Vietnam set to the epic soundtrack that is “Ride of the Valkyries” whips the Marines into a collective frenzy. In my mind, that scene encompasses the phrase from Einstein that you cited: “…It is a comparatively easy task to call it [the lust for hatred and destruction] into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis.”
I also really like the other quote you chose, about men always remembering the feel of their rifle, as well as the thought that Swofford leaves us with at the very end of the film about being a Jarhead for life. Both speak to what is the Marine Corp motto, “Semper fidelis,” or “Always faithful.” While there is a sense of camaraderie and fraternity among Marines and those who train/serve together, I think the motto can also refer to the fact that what you learn as a Marine cannot be unlearned, that the state of mind of being a Marine remains with you forever.
This also says a lot about the strength of those latent feelings everyone’s talking about, especially once they’ve been triggered. Once that feeling’s been awakened in you, it seems impossible to put it back to sleep. That being said, I have to go with the general consensus here and agree that mankind will never eradicate war because it just doesn’t seem possible to make pacifists out of all of us.