
Every man fights his own war.
Plot outline
Cast
- Jake Gyllenhaal
- Scott MacDonald
- Peter Sarsgaard
- Jamie Foxx
- Ming Lo
- Lucas Black
- Kevin Foster
- Brian Geraghty
- Damion Poitier
- Riad Galayini
- Craig Coyne
- Katherine Randolph
- Rini Bell
- Dendrie Taylor
- James Morrison
- Arman Zajic
- Brianne Davis
- Brian Casey
- Ernest Ozuna
- Tyler Sedustine
- Jacob Vargas
- Laz Alonso
- Jocko Sims
- Jonathon R. Mize
- Joel Prato
- Kristin Richardson
- Iván Fenyö
- Tyler Jon Olson
- Peter Gail
- Jamie Martz
- Evan Jones
- Kareem J. Grimes
- Chris Cooper
- Donna Kimball
- Dennis Haysbert
- Martin Papazian
- Becky Boxer
- Mark Davis
- John Krasinski
- Christian Reeve
- Mike Akrawi
- Tulsi Ram
- Jubin K
- Hari Bali
- Kurt Larson
- Ammar Daraiseh
- Nasser Faris
- V.J. Foster
- Kenneth Lachapelle
- Steve Nguyen
- Jimilee Allen
- Byron Browne
- Bryant Cook
- Devin Corey
- Nick Dash
- Matt Duggan
- Blake Ellis
- Jon Erik
- Cantrell Harris
- Carma Harvey
- Alexis Hernandez
- Patricia Lauriet
- Raul Limon
- Brian Mahoney
- Justin Marchert
- Orion McCabe
- Michael Mercurio
- Kelron Mixon
- Ryan Moriarty
- Brian Napolitan
- Joseph Olea
- Jay Olegario
- Eriq F. Prince
- Kenneth Restrepo
- Matthew Saxe
- Phil Selvey
- Justin Shelden
- Alastair Surprise
- Merik Tadros
- Kipp Tribble
- Kevin J. Tunell
- Ryan Yerrick
Plots
A psychological study of operations desert shield and desert storm during the gulf war; through the eyes of a U.S marine sniper who struggles to cope with the possibility his girlfriend may be cheating on him back home.
Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, a Camus-reading kid from Sacramento, enlists in the Marines in the late 1980s. He malingers during boot camp, but makes it through as a sniper, paired with the usually-reliable Troy. The Gulf War breaks out, and his unit goes to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. After 175 days of boredom, adrenaline, heat, worry about his girlfriend finding someone else, losing it and nearly killing a mate, demotion, latrine cleaning, faulty gas masks, and desert football, Desert Storm begins. In less than five days, it's over, but not before Swoff sees burned bodies, flaming oil derricks, an oil-drenched horse, and maybe a chance at killing. Where does all the testosterone go?
Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows "Swoff," a third-generation enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck on his back through Middle East deserts with no cover from intolerable heat or from Iraqi soldiers, always potentially just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand against an enemy they can't see for a cause they don't fully fathom... Sergeant Sykes is a Marine lifer who heads up Swofford's scout/sniper platoon, while Troy is Swoff's friend and mentor, a die-hard member of STA - their elite Marine Unit.