Swofford committed himself to writing in 1995, at the age of 24, and built on the encouragement he received at college to write "Jarhead", which documents his time spent in the Gulf. In the book he portrays a grim view of life as a Marine, and indeed shows himself in a rather unflattering light. He said himself, "I could have written a flattering portrait of myself as a young Marine, but it would have been a much lesser book." Reviewing "Jarhead" for "The New York Times", Michiko Kakutani said the book combined "the black humor of "Catch-22" with the savagery of "Full Metal Jacket" and the visceral detail of "The Things They Carried."" In 2004, he received the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir for "Jarhead".