I was surfing at Yahoo movies and I noticed that one of my favoritest books has been made into a film. If you haven't yet read Jarhead by Anthony Swofford you ought to. The book is controversial, foul, and shocking. I enjoyed it, and I have found many parallels to my own military experience. That being said, my readers should know that I welcome disagreement. In fact here are two opposing viewpoints of the book and soon to be movie.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/29/010145.php
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,79248,00.html

I really liked this book because I identified with it as an enlisted man. The search for manhood, the never ending bureaucracy, the little boys with their homicidal tendencies, my own homicidal tendencies, the struggle with the addictiveness of the regimental lifestyle, were all things I could identify with. Yet, some see it as an offensive anti-American rag with dirty rotten liberalism at its core. That's fine by me if it struck you that way, but then again you don't know the sailors I've known and I found a little bit of them in many of the characters in Jarhead. In fact, if the movie is as good as the book, it will be on par with the likes of A Midnight Clear, Das Boot, and Band of Brothers.

What's that you say? Why didn't I include Saving Private Ryan? Well..... can you say broad, unlikely, and politically correct. I can and just did. Although to be fair it was beautifully filmed and edited well.