An American soldier, fighting in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, has written to his friends and family back home about his unpleasant time while serving his country. Through out his email he gives examples of what its like to live like a soldier and creates a vivid visual for his audience. He adopts a grim tone about his situation in order to give his audience the true experience of being an American soldier on the front lines. He creates this tone through his use of rhetorical strategies like figurative language, syntax and ethos. He begins his email with a great deal of metaphors.
The soldier tries to relate to his audience by giving them situations to portray exactly what he has to deal with on a day to day basis. He opens with a direct comparison between the filth inside a vacuum canister to what he is surrounded by everyday. He describes the dirt as being everywhere and in everything, “pour it all over you [the dirt], your bed, clothing, and your personal effects.” The readers can get a really good visual from his comparison. Also he makes another comparison between his tent mates and a “kennel full of pugs”.
He compares his nine tent mates “smell, snoring, and social graces” directly to pugs. Once again the soldier gives his audience a feeling of what its like to live like this. The author of this email also using the rhetorical strategy of syntax to give this passage a grim tone on his day by day life. He starts off by talking about his tent and what exactly its like. In this second paragraph he uses many commas to break up sentences to sort of list what the reader should do to get the full idea of living in Iraq.
This also shows how structured his life is in the military. He gives the reader steps like, “pitch a tent in your driveway, and mark off an area inside it…”. You can also see his use of syntax when he describes what its like to just go to the restroom. This gives the audience the feel of his life in all aspects. He uses short sentences like “Time for hygiene.” and “Walk to the nearest bathroom.” This strategy shows that he just wants to cut to the chase of what its like to be a soldier.
He uses this strategy to just give the raw picture of his experience. Lastly, the soldiers email to his friends and family really gives the true picture of living in Iraq. This email is first hand information from an American soldier. It doesn’t get anymore raw then hearing from the people who are actually there and living through it all. This passage has a great use of ethos through out. The soldiers email gives the steps to recreate his life in Iraq and it shows his struggles and difficulties.
He tells the readers how he feels about all the situations he is put into. For example when he is discussing the latrine experience he has “felt like either crying or lighting myself on fire to remove the filth.” This true emotion he reveals makes this a valid passage about his living conditions and gives credibility to the author. After you have read about his “small mental voyage” the reader is painted a whole picture on the true life of being an American soldier in Iraq and his grim tone helps to add to the unpleasant situations he is faced with.
