Do We Really Want to Know?

CPL Rodriguez said “Have you ever faced your own mortality?” in Sean Huze’s play “The Sand Storm” (Huze 15.) Soldiers face their own death every day and it’s something they probably think about each day in and out. It has to be a hard life to live thinking that you may not live to see the next sun rise. Reading Sean Huze’s play was very interesting. It is based on the Iraq war and I think because it’s something that is happening right now that it makes it more interesting for me. It is hard, in general, to hear about war, especially this one as I am not completely for this war. After reading this play and Tim O’Brien’s short stories I couldn’t help but compare the two since they are both based on war stories. One of Tim O’Brien’s short stories was “How to Tell a True War Story” I thought when Casavecchia said, in Huze’s play, “You’re not supposed to share ‘em. Nope. You’re supposed to go through absolute hell, become something you do, if you make it home…keep it to yourself. Bear witness if you will. Otherwise no truth will ever come out of it.” (Huze 1.)  The character, Tim, in “How to tell a True War story” basically feels that there are many ways to tell a “true” war story and sometimes it’s by lying, while Casavecchia believes you should not tell them at all. In my mind, we all want to hear about what happens, we want to get some sort of grasp on how a soldier lives but some of us cannot handle it. It can be very disturbing to know that a soldier bashes their enemy in the head with their boots over and over until their pant legs are covered in blood (Huze 14.) It makes you wonder which parts are actual fact and which is mere imagination in Huze’s and O’Brien’s stories. And can we handle the truth? 

                               http://blog.usnavyseals.com/2010/06/memorials-for-the-fallen-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-in-kansas.html