Jarhead

Off late I have developed a malacious habbit of sleeping through movies at the theatres. Probably because of the dearth of good themes. But that was not the case yesterday when I saw Jarhead. Would have been wonderful to watch it sans the gibberish from the sides. Most of us were expecting a war movie with the usual red blue white story. But this was not to be. This is the story of a Marine and his company who went to the Gulf war and never got a chance to fire a bullet during their six months stay.

What jarred me was the thought of knowing all and not having a chance to make use of it. Imagine a marine completing the tough training, conquering the mental barriers and finally getting a chance to go to the defend his country only to find that in the end to did not use any of the skills that he was trainned in. One of my colleagues who has been to the Gulf war had given me a similar account of his stay in the gulf. His war was 14 minutes of high alert against an ambush attack which turned out to be false.