Gustav Hasford
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Jerry Gustave Hasford (November 28, 1947 – January 29, 1993), also known under his pen name Gustav Hasford, was an American Marine, novelist, journalist and poet. His semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers (1979) was the basis for the film Full Metal Jacket (1987).<ref name=Lewis>Template:Cite web</ref> He was a Vietnam War veteran, who served as a war correspondent, and was a cousin of comic book writer Jason Aaron.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Biography
Early life
Born in Russellville, Alabama, Hasford joined the United States Marine Corps in 1966 and served as a combat correspondent during the Vietnam War. As a military journalist, he wrote stories for Leatherneck Magazine, Pacific Stars and Stripes, and Sea Tiger.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> During his tour in Vietnam, Hasford was awarded the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Valor Device, during the Battle of Huế in 1968.
Early literary career
Hasford attended the Clarion Workshop<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and associated with various science fiction writers of the 1970s, including Arthur Byron Cover and David J. Skal. He had several short stories published in magazines and anthologies such as Space and Time and Damon Knight's Orbit series. He also published the poem "Bedtime Story" in a 1972 edition of Winning Hearts and Minds, the first anthology of writing about the war by veterans.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The poem was reprinted in Carrying the Darkness in 1985.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Short-Timers
In 1978, Hasford attended the Milford Writer's Workshop and met veteran science fiction author Frederik Pohl, who was then an editor at Bantam Books. At Pohl's suggestion, Hasford submitted The Short-Timers, and Pohl promptly bought it for Bantam.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Short-Timers was published in 1979 and became a best-seller, described in Newsweek as "[t]he best work of fiction about the Vietnam War".<ref name=Lewis/> It was adapted into the feature film Full Metal Jacket (1987), directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay by Hasford, Kubrick, and screenwriter Michael Herr was nominated for an Academy Award. Hasford's actual contributions were a subject of dispute among the three, and ultimately Hasford chose not to attend the Oscar ceremonies.<ref name=Lewis/>
Library books theft charges
In 1985, Hasford had borrowed 98 books from the Sacramento, California, public library but never returned them. An arrest warrant for misdemeanor grand theft was issued, but local authorities were unable to find him.<ref name="Hasford-LATimes">Template:Cite news</ref> In March 1988, shortly before the Academy Awards ceremony, campus police from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, found nearly 10,000 library books in his rented storage locker. At that time, he had 87 overdue books and five years of Civil War Times magazine issues checked out from the Cal Poly-SLO library; the materials were initially valued at $3,000 (they were later revalued at $20,000).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Hasford's book collection included books borrowed (and never returned) from dozens of libraries across the United States, from libraries in Australia and the United Kingdom, and, allegedly, books taken from the homes of acquaintances. Among them were 19th-century books on Edgar Allan Poe and the American Civil War. Hasford had obtained borrowing privileges at Cal Poly-SLO as a California resident, using the residential address of a motel near campus and a false Social Security number.<ref name="Hasford-LATimes" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In June 1988, he was charged with two counts of grand theft and ten counts of possession of stolen property.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Judge Harry Woolpert of the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court scheduled the trial hearings to begin on December 5.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> During the trial, Hasford rearranged to plead guilty to possession of stolen property. On January 4, 1989, Hasford was sentenced to six months' imprisonment (of which he served three months) and promised to pay $1,100 in restitution from the royalties of his future works. He was also ordered to pay the shipping costs for the return of 748 books to nine libraries throughout the United States.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In a form letter addressed to friends and family, Hasford claimed that he wanted the books to research a never-published book on the Civil War. He described his difficulties as "a vicious attack launched against me by Moral Majority fanatics backed up by the full power of the Fascist State."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Second and third novels
In 1990, he published a second novel, The Phantom Blooper,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which was a sequel to The Short-Timers.<ref name="Salzberg, Charles 1990">Template:Cite news</ref> The sequel was intended to be the second installment of a "Vietnam Trilogy", but Hasford died before writing the third installment.<ref name="Ross, Matthew Samuel 2010">Template:Cite journal</ref> Hasford's final novel titled A Gypsy Good Time, a hardboiled, noir detective story set in Los Angeles, was published in 1992.
Later life and death
Hasford, impoverished<ref name="Ross, Matthew Samuel 2010"/> and suffering from untreated diabetes, moved to the Greek island of Aegina and died there of heart failure on 29 January 1993, aged 45. He is interred at Winston Memorial Cemetery in Haleyville, Alabama.<ref name=Lewis/>
Books
- Vietnam Trilogy<ref name="Salzberg, Charles 1990"/>
- The Short-Timers (1979) Template:ISBN
- The Phantom Blooper: A Novel of Vietnam (1990) Template:ISBN
- Unpublished<ref>Template:Cite web "Apparently by the time he'd finished The Phantom Blooper, Gus was already planning to write a third Viet Nam novel. Apparently, not much work was ever completed on this book, which had many possible titles, one of them Exit Wounds. The story involved Private Joker taking a job as a reporter in Los Angeles in the years after the war."</ref>
- Standalone novel
- A Gypsy Good Time (1992) Template:ISBN