Jarhead: a Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles

Anthony Swofford's Jarhead is the first Gulf War memoir by a frontline infantry marine, and it is a searing, unforgettable narrative. When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker. Swofford weaves this experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. As engagement with the Iraqis draws closer, he is forced to consider what it is to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man. Unlike the real-time print and television coverage of the Gulf War, which was highly scripted by the Pentagon, Swofford's account subverts the conventional wisdom that U.S. military interventions are now merely surgical insertions of superior forces that result in few American casualties. Jarhead insists we remember the Americans who are in fact wounded or killed, the fields of smoking enemy corpses left behind, and the continuing difficulty that American soldiers have reentering civilian life. A harrowing yet inspiring portrait of a tormented consciousness struggling for inner peace, Jarhead will elbow for room on that short shelf of American war classics that includes Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and be admired not only for the raw beauty of its prose but also for the depth of its pained heart.

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles

Biographies & Memoirs

SWOFFORD, Anthony

Leaders & Notable People

Scribner

When the U.S. Marines--or "jarheads"--were sent to Saudi Arabia in 1990 for the Gulf War, Anthony Swofford was there. He lived in sand for six months; he was punished by boredom and fear; he considered suicide, pulled a gun on a fellow marine, and was targeted by both enemy and friendly fire. As engagement with the Iraqis drew near, he was forced to consider what it means to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man.

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War

In his New York Times bestselling chronicle of military life, Anthony Swofford weaves his experiences in war with vivid accounts of boot camp, reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. When the U.S. Marines -- or "jarheads" -- were sent to Saudi Arabia in 1990 for the first Gulf War, Anthony Swofford was there. He lived in sand for six months; he was punished by boredom and fear; he considered suicide, pulled a gun on a fellow marine, and was targeted by both enemy and friendly fire. As engagement with the Iraqis drew near, he was forced to consider what it means to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man.

When the Marines were sent to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm, Anthony Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. This is his scorching memoir of life on and off the battlefield.

Jarhead: a marine's chronicle of the Gulf War

Scribner/London

Jarhead.: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War.

Simon Schuster(uk)

Jarhead

Humor & Entertainment

Puzzles & Games

Harboring a secret love for a general's precocious daughter while coming of age at an Air Force base in 1989 Japan, young Severin Boxx is swept up in the motherless girl's subversive infatuation with the Japanese underground.

Exit A: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

United States

Anthony Swofford follows his international best-seller Jarhead with an unforgettable first novel -- a powerful story about a youth spent on a U.S. air base in Japan and the gritty neon streets just outside it, where the Japanese underworld lurks and a rebellious young girl finds herself in great danger........ Seventeen-year-old Severin Boxx, an earnest, muscular high-school-football star, lives on an American air force base on the outskirts of Tokyo. Severin is mad for Virginia Kindwall, the base general's daughter, who is a hafu -- half American and half Japanese. Beautiful, smart, and utterly defiant of her father, Virginia has become a petty criminal in the Japanese underground. Severin is soon caught up in Virginia's world, and together they drift through the mad neon landscape outside the walls of the base, near the busy Haijima rail station, a place of movement, anonymity, and sudden disappearance. Exit A is one of its many shadowy doorways. Severin and Virginia fall into trouble way over their heads and are soon subjected to the enormous, unforgiving tensions between America and Japan. Years later, Severin and Virginia remain lost to each other, until an emotionally frayed, thirty- something Severin embarks on a quest to find Virginia -- and the part of himself taken from him when his boyhood abruptly ended. Darkly irreverent, frankly erotic, at once suspenseful and emotionally overwhelming, Swofford's Exit A builds inexorably toward a climax as it audaciously plumbs the legacies of war, the wish for redemption, and the danger of love..........

Exit A

Literary

Simon&Schuster

A memoir of the Gulf War by a front-line infantry marine recounts his struggles with the conflict on the front lines, his girlfriend's infidelity, his battles with fear and suicide, his brushes with death, and his identity as a soldier and an American. Read by the author.

Simon & Schuster Audio

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SWOFFORD, Anthony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by SWOFFORD, Anthony

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SWOFFORD, Anthony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles

Jarhead: a marine's chronicle of the Gulf War

Jarhead.: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War.

Jarhead

Exit A: A Novel

Exit A: A Novel

Exit A

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles