Live Essay

The Strength Within

          War is a widely spoken about, written about and debated topic, people have an idea in their heads of what war is, but do not fully know what it means. Sean Huze and Tim O’Brien are two of many veterans of war who have wrote about their experiences. Although both participated in different wars and time periods, the two stories are very similar. Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and Sergeant Casavecchia’s monologue in The Sandstorm by Sean Huze are talking about similar morals. The main theme both stories have in common is the importance of both external and internal weight a soldier has during a time of war. Although the external weight a soldier has is vital the internal weight is more significant because a soldier cannot set down or rid themselves of internal weight like they could with external weight. Both Huze and O’Brien show how significant internal weight is compared to external weight.

            In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, he represented both external and internal items a soldier has. O’Brien started almost every paragraph with something a soldier carried regardless if it was internal or external. After the opening sentence he would become more descriptive on what he was talking about. An example of this would be when he wrote, “What they carried was partly a function of rank, partly of field specialty” (O’Brien, 5). He then talked about followed with each soldiers rank and specialty. With O’Brien each carried weight he mentioned affected each soldier differently. O’Brien was more specific with the items he talked about. Towards the end of the story O’Brien talked about how much internal weight a soldier has. He gave the soldiers emotions which are … then showed how those are like a physical weight. Huze unlike O’Brien spoke about a memory that has weight down an individual soldier.

            Sean Huze in the excerpt from Sergeant Casavecchia from the play The Sandstorm, focused on the internal weight with relevance to the external weight.  Huze described a memory that the Sergeant had that affected him. Huze showed through the memory the importance of it to one man, Sergeant Casavecchia, in specific detail. Huze was more direct in getting his point across of the importance of internal weight affecting a soldier. By the middle of Sergeant Casavecchia’s monologue a reader had an image and could feel the emotions towards this specific memory. Both authors made it a point to describe the external items of a soldier.

            Huze in the first few sentences described externally carried items. He talks about the guns the soldiers have and their uniforms. Sergeant Casavecchia talked about how the people refrigerated their water for them so it was cold. Sergeant Casavecchia says, “There was plenty of bad shit over there but it’s not the just the blood, the death that gets to you either…” (Huze, 21). Huze wants the reader to see that the blood and death are external. He is trying to say that those are not the only thing a soldier has to deal with at war. Huze’s main focus in Sergeant Casavecchia’s speech was internal weight, but he addresses the external weight throughout. When leaving the mission Sergeant Casavecchia talked about a picture he carried of his wife and son. The picture was physically carried item that placed a huge weight on Sergeant Casavecchia. It was his family, and it was all he had that tied him back to the life he once had. That shows the significance of what a soldier chooses to carry during a war. O’Brien also talks about external items a soldier has.

            O’Brien started the majority of his paragraphs talking about the external items carried by a soldier. In the second paragraph O’Brien stated, “the things they carried were largely determined by necessity” (O’Brien, 2). He did not distinguish if the objects were internal or external, but the described objects following that sentence indicated that they were external. He named the soldiers and described what they carried. The medic of the group carried all the medical supplies and the biggest man carried the heaviest gun. He named all the external items that were needed for survival. All the items the soldier carried was significant in protecting their lives. O’Brien also talks about how the rank o the individual soldier was important. Where ever the soldier ranked it created this weight of responsibility on the individual soldier. At the end of O’Brien’s story he makes the transition to talking about the internally carried items.

            The last paragraph O’Brien made the change of point to the internal weight a soldier carried. It said, “they carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” (O’Brien, 21). Up until this statement O’Brien had been talking about the externally carried weight. Here he is saying that the soldiers carried all the thoughts of survival, techniques, knowledge to use their equipment and the state of mind that they could die at any moment. Carrying all those thoughts and emotions really added to the overall weight a soldier has. Along with all the physically carried weight the soldiers had they also had their emotions. For each soldier the internal weight of their emotions affected them differently. Soldiers have to learn how to put their emotions aside and do their job. O’Brien showed just how heavy that emotional baggage was to the soldiers. Huze’s character was emotionally unstable at the remembrance of a certain memory.

            Sergeant Casavecchia was angered and internally weighed down by a memory of a certain mission he had. This specific mission placed his team protecting a town for three days. One day their mission changed and he said, “And y’know the cold reality was that someone just made the decision that protecting them was not as important as what was waiting for us in Tikrit” (Huze, 22).He was very angry at the fact that these people’s lives were ruled not good enough. His mind could not wrap around on how someone could choose if a person’s life was worth saving. Being there those three days the soldiers created a bond with the people of that town.  Leaving this group of people created such an emotional attachment for Sergeant Casavecchia and leaving them effected his mindset. This instant had created a rift between those men and their superiors. That experience created internal weight for Sergeant Casavecchia that he had to carry to his next mission. In both cases a reader could sense the importance of the internal weight and how much weight it was for the soldiers.

            Weight is not just measured by pounds and ounces because a person cannot weigh their emotions. O'Brien states, "they carried whatever presented itself, or whatever seemed appropriate as a means of killing or staying alive" (O'Brien, 7). It appears that the soldiers had to carry objects with a physical weight like a gun, helmet and food, but they also needed to right emotional mindset to be able to achieve what they needed to do. Huze uses, "It was kinda' nice to feel human again... not some machine void of emotion" (Huze, 22). This statement shows that soldiers try to put aside their emotion to focus on the task. By putting aside emotions it shows how much they truly affect them. If they do not put the emotions aside they could possibly not perform at their best. The emotional weight might become to much for a soldier to think about and they have to try to put it aside. That shows just how important it really is.

            The emotional weight a soldier carries helps them. It was important know that their life could end and allowed them to work to prevent it. By carrying boththe physical and emotional weight it kept the soldiers sane. No matter how much of a hardship the physical weight was a soldier could not lessen the emotional weight. The emotional weight never leaves a soldier. O'Brien and Huze portrayed the image of the importance of emotional weight in the lives of the soldiers. 

Works Cited

Huze, Sean. The Sandstorm. New York: Susan Schulman Literary Agency, 2004. Print.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Chelsea House Pub, 2010. Print.

Lonesentry.com (WWII Image)

Zazzle.com (Iraq War Image)


Fatoids.com (Rank Ribbons Image)

Corbisimages.com (Receiving Metal Image)

Salisburypost.com (Keepsake Image)

Soldiersystems.net (Medic Pack Image)

Archives.Starbulletin.com (Tikrit Image)