The Sand Storm

My initial reaction to this play was WOW! What a well written and impactful piece. I really lost myself in the descriptive scenes presented in “The Sand Storm”. Sean Huze has recreated incredibly harsh and complex situations in an insightful way. Each character in this play represents the different perspectives and types of personalities caught up in war.

Reading this script was uncomfortable, yet addicting. Even the crudest of characters become endearing in their own ways. I admit, having genuine sympathy for killer, was the last thing I expected to feel going into this. “And I searched my soul for how I felt about the death that I had brought that day. Searched for some sort of human feeling of regret or compassion. Searched and searched and came up with nothing” (Huze, 17). This soldier wants to go within, to understand and connect with his experience. He has become irreversibly desensitized from his shocking environment. “…Maybe the only casualties weren’t the ones lying dead on the streets of Nasirya. Maybe some of us are the walking dead, soulless shells of the men we were” (Huze, 17). These dead bodies are mirroring the emptiness felt and caused by Rodriguez and his fellow soldiers.

These men who have served their country, in the harshest of conditions, aren’t just selfishly trying to cope with their distress. They may have survived, but a piece of them has died too. The memories of what took place, is what is now living inside of their empty shells.










Works Cited

Huze, Sean. "The Sand Storm." Susan Schulman Literary Agency. 2004.1 September 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqh26E3RIEc&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pleadingforfreedom.jpg