Right from the gitgo, veteran and actor Donald Calliste playing an army chaplain, admonishes us that we don’t know squat about those who serve our country. You might be inclined to thank them for their service, he notes, and then asks– “But, do you really know them?
We are informed that only 1% of Americans are in the military, so it is no mystery that their world is remote from ours. Playwright Michelle Kholos Brooks’ script weaving together transcripts of real-world veterans takes off from this point to put flesh on the bones of that 1% statistical fact.
These Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans had just marched into the theater as an ensemble. Over the course of the play each has a solo turn in the spotlight à la Chorus Line. Some were compelled by 9/11. Some just wanted a way out of their dead-end town. We meet a man with traumatic brain injury who is hanging by a thread. A mother is deployed to battle leaving her children behind, and now is fighting breast cancer. One lost his leg in battle but feels luck in his unluckiness to have at least seen a film of seeing it sawed off. A rape victim refuses to fault the Navy she loves, only the commanders who let her down. A secularized Muslim regained his faith in battle. A drone operator quakes with guilt that he is energized by his work as if it were a video game. A lieutenant makes a deep and enduring bond with a translator who saved his life. That translator thinks first and foremost of his fellow translators left behind to suffer the Taliban’s venom. And more…
In common they thrive on knowing how everyone around them has their back. In common they say, “Shit happens; just move on”. In common they think– “..it could be worse…” In common they share a palpable fear of all the shapes and forms of IEDs.
