Tim Hunt

Dear Ms. Cline:

It is has been an exceptional experience participating in your class for this first half of the semester. Some of the topics we have been given were difficult for me to write about, but I always kept working, with positive results. I look forward to the next half of the class, and I know that I will succeed in writing work I am truly proud of.

My biggest challenge so far in the class has been finding time to work on the class work. It seems that I am always turning my work in right at the deadline. Finding time is difficult because of my busy work and school schedule; I am constantly doing something. After subtracting the forty hours a week for work and the time it takes for fifteen credit hours, time is scarce.  The reading in the class has affected me in different ways. I believe that the poetry of witness poems I read impacted me the most. I really enjoyed reading of the emotional aspects. Some were pretty gruesome, like “Song of Napalm,” which described a person being engulfed in flame. Even, “The Colonel,” which described a dictator who kept human ears, helped to give me a very horrified and emotional feeling. I enjoyed these poems, but I think I enjoy the more upbeat and positive poems more. Reading the short stories, by Huze and O’Brien, really helped me imagine what difficult times our country has been through. The two wars that they outline really explain how people felt about war and how our society has grown to accept it. The stories show the two sides, the one where the young men want to fight, and the part where the young men who don’t want to. These stories impacted my views of the Vietnam and Desert Storm wars.

Literary Analysis is probably one of the most difficult aspects of English that I have faced. I like to read different pieces of work, but I can safely say that analyzing them is not my strong point. It took me some time to figure out the difference between summarizing a work and truly analyzing it. I think this class has really helped me to learn how to detect the hidden meanings in writing. I can tell that analyzing literature is a very useful tool and something that I can use in all aspects of life. For the second half of the semester, my goal is to just continue to do the best work that I can. That means I have to make enough time for myself so that I can take my time and write work that shows my skill. Finding the time will be difficult, but I need to in order to accomplish my goal.

So far, this semester is going by really fast. It seems like only a few weeks ago I was making a video to introduce myself. I’m sure the second half of the semester will go just as fast, and I look forward to all the hard work ahead.

Sincerely,

Tim Hunt

Sean Huze Sandstorm

A little about Iraq and The Sandstorm 

My initial reaction to this work was of disbelief. This feeling occurred when the landscape, and environment were described. The environment included dead bodies littering the ground. I feel like this because I believe that no people should have to suffer through an ordeal like this one. It is life changing; society never looks the same after being surrounded by dead civilians. I was surprised at how young these Marines were. The youngest was 18 and the leader was only 24. They lost their best friends while fighting in Iraq. They were so young to be in a place that could in fact end their lives. I scared me when in the play, one of the Marines said that he experienced indescribable joy when no Marines were killed, and hundreds of enemy killed. What scared me more was when a Marine was taking pictures of the dead bodies. That seems overly brutal and something that should not happen even at war. There is no respect for the dead. I understand why the Marine would rather see enemies killed. It is a war and war is about killing enemies. But the fact of the indescribably joy, that’s the scary part. Another area of concern for me was when the doc said he would not help a single enemy. I understand that they are the enemy, but they are still human and they are still hurt. There is a difference between fighting a war, and just being brutal and immoral. These Marines lost their friends in the war. They also could have been killed anytime, like when mail finally arrived and they were reading letters and the artillery rounds began exploding. They were just trying to go home, and return to their sense of security for a second. The war would not let them. They were in a place that was trying to kill them, by enemies, heat, lack of water and sleep. This play was a very interesting and sad piece of literary work to read. I enjoyed it in the fact that I learned more about the war, but it was sad in the fact of how humans treated each other. Brutality seemed to control every aspect. But I am glad there were men brave enough to take part. 

Image found at: http://www.seanhuze.com/_/rsrc/1282226545090/stageplays/the-sand-storm/sandstorm_cafeBig2%20copy.jpg?height=400&width=262