Freaky Good Man

I went to see the movie Jarhead today. It was ok, not a great movie and it wasn’t bad, but middle of the pack. What it did do was remind me of some of my experiences in the military. The movie focused on a guy that joined the Marine Corp. right before the first Gulf War. It hit very close to home because that was the time I was in going through basic training myself.

When I was in High School, I was very active in the JROTC. I even considered making the military a career at a point. I went to Morehouse on a ROTC scholarship and was really pursuing becoming a military officer. Being in ROTC is a hard thing to complete at Morehouse for several reasons. For one you have a pretty strict regime to abide by to begin with. In addition to regular studies we had military classes to attend like ship systems, we had to attend drills and even did PT (physical training). I will never forget the first time we were doing a run at 6:00 am going through the projects. I kept waiting for someone to shoot at us or something. Luckily that never happened.

The major things that was against a ROTC cadet was that we were in a big city with lots of distractions and we were in the AUC (Atlanta University Center) with lots of regular college distractions, mainly women. At Morehouse there was always plenty of Afrocentric dialogue going on about politics and being a strong black man. Being a representative of the military, we were considered as part of the “establishment, the man, whitey”. lol So there was a struggle learning about the politics as it related to the black community and learning to go fight for Uncle Sam.

After your first year in the program you have to commit to the military for any length of time after that point. For each additional year you stayed on scholarship and decided to not finish the program you had to go into the military to repay your “debt” to them for the scholarship. So, I didn’t continue in the program after my freshman year, but had to replace the money that I was going to lose from my scholarship. What did me and my best friend decide to do? We decided to join the Reserves and get the infamous G.I. Bill to pay for college.

We didn’t want to miss much school so we looked for the first thing leaving. I had been in Navy ROTC in high school and college so, that’s the first place we looked. We ended up joining the Army reserves because they had the training that started the soonest and it would get us back in time so we would only miss one semester.

Now, back to how the movie Jarhead really brought back memories (Jarhead is a term for Marines for those that don’t know). Again, the movie talked about the first Gulf War. They had to be planning that shit well before it went down. At the time the Army wasn’t giving out signing bonuses like they do now. Now they give out bonuses because they have to attract more people. The Army had a program that was starting about 2 weeks after school was out and they were giving a $2,000 signing bonus (I think they are in the 10k range now). So we were sold and as long as we were not grunts we were cool.

We signed up for what is known as 54B or NBC Specialist. What is that you ask? An NBC Specialist is a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical warfare specialist. Now they were offering bonuses for this and this was a few months before Saddam had invaded Kuwait. So they knew what was going down long before it actually went down. We did our basic training in hot ass Anniston, AL which was 12 weeks long. That’s the general Army training everyone goes to. Then we did 8 more weeks of NBC training in Anniston where the only Chemical warfare school in the country is located and one of the only ones in the world. We would see officers from militaries from all over the world.

In the movie Jarhead they show the Marines learning how to adapt to their chemical suits and chemical masks. There is a point in the movie where Jamie Foxx’s character gives them a simulated drill of there being a gas attack and the Marines had to get into full gear within 55 seconds. We did that damn drill so much it was crazy. At the time, as is illustrated in the movie a lot of the chemical gear was not new. So shit didn’t work, but they kept telling us that on the battlefield it would save our lives.

After a few weeks into our NBC training, we knew we were in for some deep shit because TV crews started coming in and filming our training. I never forget this German TV crew came in a recorded some of our training. At that point, I knew there was going to be something major happening. We were never sure how much of an effect it was going to have on us. But, we knew it wasn’t good.

There were two other things in the movie that really stuck out. In the movie you see the guys with their chemical mask strapped to them all the time. We did the same thing. It was imperative that you had the chemical mask readily available in case of an attack. You put your mask on first and if needed you proceeded to MOP 4 or full chemical suit which included your gas mask, jacket, pants, boots and gloves. We trained in that hot ass shit in the middle of the summer in good ole Alabama.

The other thing which you see in a lot of military movies, is the camaraderie that only the military can bring. You have to depend on each other regardless of your differences in background. You would still have fights and disagreements, but you ultimately had to work as a team for life or death. So you learn to love and hate each other like any other dysfunctional family.

Once we finished our training a lot of us were scared to death. The war was eminent and it was assumed we would all go to war. At the time one of the biggest fiascoes was the readiness of the Army reserves. The Army reserves was a joke and the unit I was attached to was on the joke list. They would call up the different units and send them to desert training. Most of the units were so poorly functioning that they stayed in desert training twice as long as they were scheduled to and a couple units were sent back home because they were so poorly trained.

My unit was so bad we didn’t even get called on period. The joys of being a misfit. lol There was a time in my life where I thought the military was this wonderful thing to join. Now I wouldn’t recommend it to any kid that had other options. Now don’t get me wrong our military men and women do an outstanding job. I support them 100%. I do not support the commander and chief that sends them to do a job that is not fair.

Oh one last thing that stuck out in the movie. A good deal of the soldiers are in the mind frame that it’s kill or be killed so they buy into the military rhetoric to keep their sanity and do the job that they are called to do. If it was any other way and they got caught up in the politics of it all, we would have a very demoralized fighting force.

God Bless all of our men and women in uniform. God Bless America and I truly mean that. I really believe that with all of the faults that our country has, we are still the best country in the world.

If you like military type movies Jarhead is worth seeing. The acting wasn’t bad. But, seeing it on DVD or cable is not a bad move either.