Rogues Gallery: The Lost Souls
Swofford, Sr.
Jarhead
"The man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war, and afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands - love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper - his hands remember the rifle and the power the rifle proffered." Anthony Swofford
Anthony Swofford's father was a second-generation soldier, a Vietnam veteran, spending his career moving from one duty station to another, but always knowing who and what he was. Once out of the military, he returned to a life he was unfamiliar with, an emotionally needy wife and an institutionalized daughter that he was ill-prepared to handle.
Swofford, Sr. still wears the dog tags he no longer needs, but which remain a tangible link to a past he stubbornly clings to. Lost, uncertain and perhaps a little bitter, he sits at the kitchen table in his bathrobe, chain-smoking cigarettes and staring bleakly into a future which he feels offers him little hope.