I thought this might be interesting for spouses of veterans. The movie Jarhead is based on a section of marines that deployed into the first gulf war. The movie itself is not the typical graphic type military movie, instead it focuses more on the mental changes a soldier endures within a combat zone.

The soldiers are in country for about six months or more, and never fire one single shot at an enemy, yet where the movie starts at civilian life and just entering basic training, you can see for yourself the mental changes of before and after, then when they first get into their first operation zone and the mental changes within them. You can clearly identify how their personality changes throughout the deployment by their actions.

Basically, you can see certain soldiers developing PTSD if you know what your looking for.

The movie does contain a few scenes where they patrol through bodies that have been incinerated by aircraft bombings, more to the point, innocent civilians burnt to death merely trying to escape the bloodshed, nothing more. That is as graphic as the movie itself gets.

The movie has been out for a long time now, but I though I should share this with you, as it will help those spouses and carers of veterans better understand the psychological changes a soldier goes through from boredom, dear John letters and so forth. Hell, they even created a sign of girlfriends and wives that sent dear John letters. Another wife sent a movie of her being screwed by her next door neighbour. This stuff is real, and does happen to soldiers whilst deployed. I have seen it for myself. I have seen soldiers change overnight on deployment.

If you want the insight, Jarhead is it.

Hi Anthony,
My hubby bought Jarhead when it first came out... Really good movie... Very realistic

Thanks for that Anthony.

I just watched Jarhead last night with my uncle. It was excellent, I really felt bad for those guys. And it's not graphic at all, I was able to get through it. Most of the other war movies, like Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, etc, I can't watch without getting upset. If Jarhead is accurate though, it was pretty pointless for all of them to be OS. They didn't do anything!! That sucks for them.

Evie, could you see PTSD begin to come into their lives during that movie, the way the became and changed? I could... hence why I thought it was so accurate. War is not always about firing a shot, its about the surroundings your within, the conditions you live, seeing chaos and destruction all around you, the constant fear of knowing a bullet could hit you at any time, etc etc... firing a shot and killing a person just confirms what you are their to do, and your training if you come home alive.

Yes I could see that... although I think I'm going to watch it again tonight and pay more attention. When I watched it yesterday I was talking a lot... I kept asking my uncle questions. But yeah it was very good. It seemed very real to me.

Anthony, thank you for sharing this. Jarhead is an excellent and very realistic movie. I believe everyone who is a friend or relative of a veteran should view it at least once.

I've seen it. I know a Marine who was over there at that same time. He said it was alot like the movie. My husband is an Operation Iraqi Freedom vet, served there from 04-06.