Youth in Jarhead

"It occurs to me that we will never be young again."

Before this summer, I 've never had much interest in any media related to war or violence in general; I've never enjoyed watching war films, reading books involving war, or anything related to gunshots, bloody corpses, or realizing the awful conditions that soldiers at war must endure. I'll always prefer a chick-flick, however, this summer I had the pleasure of studying Film with Lynne Jackson at SFC and I saw such media from a different perspective.

When I perused the syllabus and read that we would be studying "Full Metal Jacket" I was definitely a bit bummed, but "Moulin Rouge" thankfully evened the playing field. My thought? It was WONDERFUL. It was beyond that, even. I was so impressed it actually changed my opinion on that genre of film, and thankfully so. It is for that reason that reading Jarhead seemed like no big deal. And through the reading thus far, it has been a big deal - in a really good way!

The novel captivated me from the outset, and I was immediately able to sympathize with the hardships that soldiers must endure. On page seven, the above quote stuck out like a sore thumb for me and really set the tone for the first half of the novel. I became aware from that point of exactly how young the characters were and what they were being asked to do. As I wrote in my previous blog, I have luckily never experienced anything like my mother had by the time she was my age. And now having read most of Jarhead, it amazes me what people are capable of doing regardless of age when left with no other choice. For me this novel has a Lord of the Flies feel to it, and I look forward to completing the second half.