On War And Redemption Summary

In ”On War and Redemption”, posted in New York Times, Timothy Kudo tells his trag-ic story about his war experiences in Afghanistan and how it affected him when he got home to America. Throughout the opinion article he describes his relation to the war and how he ended up, at home, feeling morally injured. Detailed and comprehensive, he describes his feelings, his story, his journey: and especially one episode takes up most of the room; a killing of two civilian men. The article is not a usual non-fiction text, where the author has a strong political agenda, in which she/he argues for and therefore tries to convince his/hers audience – it’s more like a personal acknowledgement, a per-sonal comment on the feelings war contributes to. Throughout the story and throughout his thoughts, he realizes that war is

How “the insanity of war” means that civilian kills are accepted. And how all of this, is incomprehensible for outsiders – for normal people, who haven’t had war close to life. The “only” backing for this claim is his own telling, his own admission. But be-cause of his ethos – as him being a part of what he is talking about; marine – it is not necessarily needed. The use of ethos is also underlined as Kudo conveys his own knowledge and experience from real life: “It was on a patrol early in our deployment in September of 2010 when the Afghan farmer dropped his shovel and ran for his life.” This applies ethos because he repeatedly draws on own experience and examples throughout the commentary and therefore justify his beliefs and opinions – it makes him reliable and credible. We believe him when he writes, “The only hard fact about the rules of engagement is that you have the right to defend yourself” and when he defines how war makes an imprint; we believe every aspect of his