For this blog post I chose to discuss a passage from Sean Huze play “The Sand Storm.” The passage takes place when sergeant Williams is speaking to sergeant Casavecchia about the claustrophobia he experienced when the troops had to suit up to avoid toxic gas, “from that point on I never used my gas mask effectively. Time after time we’d get the alert and time after time I risked it. So, folks are all pissed off about there not being any weapons of mass destruction. Shit, not me. My ass is damn lucky there is no WMD over there” (Huze, page 7.) I think that this passage stuck out to me because Sergeant Williams makes it clear that he understand he is possibly choosing death over the feeling of being trapped. This is reflected a few times in the play, that the troops feel rather disposable in the scheme of everything. The other part that caught my eye about this passage is the reference to weapons of mass destruction. I remember when the Iraq war started the main cited reason in the media was the fear of nuclear bombs or weapons of that caliber. People against the war today still bring that in as a major argument, the fact that we really have not found anything. The passage in the play sort of reflects that the soldiers may not believe the Iraqis posses these items. I think the root of the meaning of the play is asking the question if our soldiers do not know what they are doing over there, how do we expect them to go in and fight without questioning it.
Here is a link to an article talking about Sean Huze and why he wrote the play The Sandstorm: http://www.alternet.org/world/20358/
That's really interesting, I actually didn't read that one, but I think I'm going to go back and read it. Especially because of the passage or comment about the weapons of mass destruction, that's very interesting how that relates to the argument today. I don't know how someone could cope with being claustrophobic over there, especially having to wear the gas masks. I wonder how many are not worn effectively because of that?
ReplyDeleteStacey,
ReplyDeleteI think you have an interesting point of view about this passage. It is a dangerous mentality that the soldiers are disposable. It goes along with the feelings of apathy a lot of the soldiers described in the play. They are true heroes because they go in and fight even if they don't know why. They follow orders without question and it ultimately ends up effecting them in many different ways. Like the soldier who you talk about experiences the feeling of claustrophobia. I think that out of all of the psychological effects that a soldier could experience that this soldier is lucky because the affects of war could have been much more severe. The WMD that were never found are still a subject of contention amongst critics of the war but this story is a prime example of why we are very lucky that there were none!
Noel