The Gamblers Fallacy



The Sandstorm by Sean Huze

Sean Huze's play brings out a lot of emotions, but I don't know if they are the right ones. The play

has a lot of fallacies in it, the main one that sticks out is "Appeal to Emotion." He is using your

emotions against you to sum up a war that is very complicated. Multiple times the author suggests

that the Marines don't want to be there. This might be true but the author fails to recognize that this

is a very small select group of the Marine Corps. He plays a fallacy here called a, "Hasty

Generalization." This fallacy takes a small sample of a large group and then bases the facts of the

smaller sample on the entire group. Other than that the story appeals to emotions by involving

gory details and facts, somehow trying to undermine the war, and in a small way saying it's not

worth it because this is what's happening to people. The story in the end where it talks about the

Marines leaving the town and the author putting all that mushy gushy stuff in there, he continues

to use fallacies and fails to use common sense. Again, using the appeal to emotion fallacy, the

author forgets to add any amount of common sense. For instance, the fact that they are soldiers,

and that soldiers never see the whole picture. So when higher up calls for them to go and take

care of business somewhere else, like an uprising of insurgents which is a bad thing, they freak

out and feel like they are abandoning those people. In all reality they probably sent some more

Marines in to protect those people. And even if they didn't, they obviously had something more

important to take care of. In essence I was disgusted with this play because rather than use facts

the author relies on pity and emotion to grab the audiences attention.

The two poems that I reacted two the most or felt the most connection to was "Song of Napalm" by Bruce Weigl and "Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting" by Kevin C. Powers. I guess the reason that I felt such a connection to these two poems is that they both have to deal with war, which happens to be what my trade is. I joined the Army in 2008 and I'm a gunner for the 856 Military Police Company stationed up in Flagstaff. Reading these poems reminds me of some of the stuff I have been through in our training and what not. The discussions I've had with people in and out of the military and the awkward introductions I have made when explaining to my girl friends family what it is that I do in the Army.



When reading Powers poem and realizing that the first line is a of him writing home to his girl, I can connect with him on a personal level because of the letters that I have written home to family and friends. I understand what it's like to be writing a letter and wondering if anything that is happening around me will some how be passed in through the letter, like smells or dust or even a drop of blood. I can even now still remember where I wrote some of my letters and the weird feeling it is to be a killer yet a lover at the same time. To be writing home about your feelings when you know the next day you wouldn't want any of your loved ones to know what it is your training for, or what it is that you will be doing the next day.



In Weigl's poem I see how a young man is trying to forget where he is by day dreaming, by wishing away everything he has seen. This experience is common amongst us soldiers. I don't know how many times I have sat around day dreaming wishing I was some where other than where I was. But you are always brought back by the chirp of automatic gunfire or the heat or someone yelling. Trying to go back to the day dream is like trying to catch the bird you just released. It's senseless to try once the day dream is over but you try again anyway, because it was just nice to get away for a while. But like he explains in the end of his poem by saying,
"And not your good love and not the rain-swept air
And no the jungle green
Pasture unfolding before us can deny it." (Weigl 41-45)
He's saying that no matter how you paint the picture reality is what it is. There is no way to get away from it, no escape.












Works Cited
1. "Song of Napalm" Bruce Weigl, Archaeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems. Grove/Atlantic, Inc. 1999 https://3bb.yc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_22410_1%26url%3D
2. "Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting" Kevin C. Powers, Poetry 2009. https://3bb.yc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_22410_1%26url%3D

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Image 2- http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.vietnammemorial.com/vietnam-soldiers-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.vietnammemorial.com/vietnam-war.html&usg=__KdjgPyiQe_WhfoyeYKzy41BK55s=&h=404&w=500&sz=45&hl=en&start=20&zoom=1&tbnid=hlhVGo8edfEorM:&tbnh=138&tbnw=179&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpictures%2Bof%2Bvietnam%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D996%26bih%3D960%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C582&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=530&vpy=368&dur=2&hovh=202&hovw=250&tx=166&ty=135&ei=FNqKTJSuINmxnAeR-cmBDA&oei=EtqKTIOdEIT6lwfL_5H_CQ&esq=2&page=2&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:20&biw=996&bih=960

Sam Hammil’s view of how to change the violence in today’s society and past is ridiculous. He is presuming that all humanity can come to a point of certainty about love. He is saying that everyone, if they try, can have enough “compassion” in their heart to overcome the “batterers” of the world. But then he goes on to defend the people in jail saying that they need to be saved too. He’s saying that people can be saved, when in reality we cannot save them. They made a choice; he says that people lash out because they don’t know how to express their love. This is such a stupid statement because people know when they are hurting each other, people don’t sit around and go, “Oh, gee, I wonder why I just hit her?” NO! It’s because the fool was drunk and he was pissed off and he is taking on his anger. Not because he doesn’t know how to express himself.
He absurdly assures us that we can through “compassion” somehow change the world. He refers to Japan and how he served there. Does he not remember how the war started? Does he not know what happened on December 7, 1941? WE WERE BOMBED! My Grandpa was there he was almost blown in half and his best friend WAS blown into pieces. We were not even involved in the war; we were trying to stay out of it. But no, Japan attacked first, they wanted us to enter the war and they were totally prepared to take us over. That is why we attacked back, that is why we dropped a nuke on them. It was to save lives on both sides. If we had invaded their country they were totally prepared to fight until no one was left.
Does Mr. Hammil understand or even know what their government was made up of? It was the Emperor and whatever he said went. He thought that he was so “holy” that he had never touched the ground with his actual feet. He was always elevated and people lived to serve him and his legacy. Now can you tell me how that is compassion? Can you tell me that if Mr. Hammil had gone up to him and told him he was wrong and that he should be more compassionate on others, that the Emperor would have listened? I don’t think so. This view of the world and how to solve it’s problems are stupid. It would never work. However, look at Japan today. They have a democracy they can do what they want without asking an Emperor if it’s ok. That is what we brought them; in essence we died so THEY could have it.