My Life As A Soldier Rhetorical Analysis

This way of thinking also raises the soldier up to a higher level of respect. Their humanity is in the forefront of in calling it a moral injury and we in turn, have to look at our responsibility in asking them to go to war and ‘defend’ our so-called ‘rights’, to the minerals, oil and to defining the rights of other people in their countries. We as a society need to look at what we have become as a nation, that treats it’s military like a police force, but one that meets the wants of the governments American ideals and consumerism of the people. We are not defending our country when we go off to war, we are not being threatened; we are projecting our idea of what the world should be and how it should operate onto other countries, we are protecting a way of life that we have become accustomed to, at the cost of others’ lives and …show more content…
In this beautiful and haunting two thousand year old ritual, he was able to talk to his friends that were killed in Vietnam through a letter. He welcomed friends and “former enemies,” People he had hated and people, like his Grandparents he had loved. What was most poignant, was that he and his friend did the ritual alone, letting Marlantes face his demons, with no censure, with no expectations, and no judgement, just letting the healing unfold. (Karl Marlantes, What it is Like to Go to War, pg. 196-201) In the later part of the same story, Marlantes goes through another ritual, alone, after coaching from a friend, that helps him to stand up to an even larger dark energy (Shadow, evil, collective shadow?), which I think represents another large step in healing. He was able to reach out for help and people were there for him, to help him through it, and he took up his own healing. Maybe there was more to this story, but only Marlantes, the veteran can know. He faced what he needed to for emotional