Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War [Hardcover]

'JARHEAD is not only a work of reportage from a "privileged" observer, it is also a display of genuine talent'

'A scathingly honest and bleakly powerful book. A hugely disturbing insight into the minds of the very young men who long to go to war'

'A terrific memoir: intelligently self-aware, moving and considered. I'd recommend this book to anyone'

'JARHEAD is some kind of classic...that will go down with the best books ever written about military life'

'An incomparable document of military record...I believe it will be read by millions'

This is a harrowing, yet inspiring portrait of a tormented consciousness struggling for reconciliation and peace. Anthony Swofford's grandfather fought in World War II, his father fought in Vietnam, and he, a directionless, testosterone-battered teenager, became a scout/sniper in the US Marines and fought in the Gulf War. His account of that time is also part of a lineage - after Wilfred Owen, Norman Mailer, Michael Herr and Tim O'Brien, it brings the raw and searing tradition of soldiers' tales up to date In the West, many have become convinced that it is possible to fight a war largely without casualties. Swofford's brutally honest account of life as a marine in the Gulf shows that every human being trained to kill another is a casualty. The author endures six months of sand-ridden hell with his fellow "jarheads", tortured by boredom and fear. He suffers physical abuse from a training officer, is betrayed by his girlfriend at home, puts a loaded gun in his mouth, threatens to kill a fellow soldier, and comes under fire from both the enemy and another US military unit With the conflict over, Swofford hikes for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqui soldiers and is almos

Anthony Swofford grew up on military bases in the US and Japan, and joined the Marine Corps in 1988, aged eighteen. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield in 1990 with the Second Battalion, 7th Marines. On leaving the Marines Swofford attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop.