I was in elementary school when the Columbine shooting happened. I remember watching the World Trade Center collapse on the television set in my seventh grade social studies classroom. Evening news broadcasts filled with images of war were commonplace throughout my childhood. Only a month after I finished the earliest version of “SUNK,” someone walked into a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire. A few months later a similar scenario unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary School. These tragedies have become so prevalent over the past decade that our reaction is no longer one of shock. We have become conditioned to accept these atrocities as the norm. We acknowledge them before brushing them off to go about our business.

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My generation is often described as apathetic. While it is not my intention to defend apathy, it should be no surprise that a generation raised watching human beings kill each other on a massive scale on television might develop a sense of apathy as a defense mechanism. The alternative is empathy. To fully appreciate the significance of these horrific events is a traumatic experience.

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When I was nineteen I visited the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. As I stood directly above the decaying wreckage of that once magnificent ship, the carnage that had taken place on that very spot seventy years ago suddenly became real to me. I did not fully grasp the significance of that moment for some time. For several months I was preoccupied with what I had experienced that day. I gradually realized that all of the violence I had witnessed throughout my childhood was every bit as real as the violence that took place in Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. I was no longer able to be apathetic.

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“SUNK,” is about the struggle to cope. It is about the determination to act, and the paralyzing fear of not knowing how. It is about mourning, and it is about healing. Most of all, it is about remembering.

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- William Trachsel, May 2014