Jarhead, the movie

I saw "Jarhead" the other day. I found it to be a good movie, true to life, and it brought back many memories for me.

I think the most compelling memory for me was the memory of the "upside-down V" that was painted on coalition forces vehicles. The reason I remember this is because I remember painting those numbers on our unit's vehicles. My unit was a Marine Expeditionary Unit, formerly known as a Marine Amphibious Unit. These units are deployed 6 months of every year, or at least they were when I first joined the unit. Soon after my first deployment they changed to an 18 month rotation instead of a 12 month rotation. This background is just to say that my unit deployed in July of 1990 for a six-month tour. My unit was highly trained, highly motivated and prepared for any contingency that we would be asked to face.

That being said, we were in Subic Bay, RoP when we got word that Saddam had invaded Kuwait. So we went. Along the way we were given word that our vehicles needed a special paint job, apparently jungle camo doesn't work in the desert. So we deserted them up. Then they sent word that all vehicles needed that special "V" on them. So we stenciled it on all of our vehicles.

That's really all I can say about what we did, and where we went. My unit was kept seperate from the rest of the units and we participated in various missions throughout the Theater at the behest of the coalition forces commanders.