How the Marines video made the Afghan war even tougher

This personal reflection opinion article by Timothy Kudo on the viral video of United States Marines urinating on dead Taliban insurgents was an incredible inside look of what it is like to be a Marine. Timothy Kudo served in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2009-2011 as a Marine captain. And what was even more interesting was that he knew the infantry that posted the disgraceful video on the Internet, the 3rd Batallion, 2nd Marines. Kudo speaks of the Marines most important mission of a sense of morality in building local support. The 42 second video ruined that sense of morality and is going to create a hard battle ahead for those going back to Afghanistan. Not only that, but the peace negotiations the United States is trying to achieve now are going to be more difficult to achieve. Kudo's anger at his fellow Marines provides so much emotion when he describes the process of dealing with enemy death with respect.

The main appeal of the Washington Post's "How the Marines video made the Afghan war even tougher" is ethos and pathos. The ethos appeal is established immediately when Timothy Kudo defines himself as not only a United States Marine, but one who has been to Afghanistan and Iraq. This ethos establishes a great amount of credibility with the audience because Kudo can relate to the Marines and tell his audience what other Marines think of this action. The pathos appeal shows when Kudo says, "I can't imagine what went through the heads of the men in the video, because desecrating the dead goes against every custom and value the Marines hold dear," (Kudo 1). The disappointment and failure of morality in these Marines is what Kudo writes about and how they were taught to treat the dead with respect. With that, Kudo writes of his own experiences while fighting in the Afghan war and how there were situations where discipline was hard, especially when one of their own died, but it still shined through. The pathos appeal and Kudo's Marine experiences really make this Washington Post article incredible.

Source: Kudo, Timothy. "How the Marines video made the Afghan war even tougher." The Washington Post 13 Jan. 2012, sec. Opinion: n. pag. The Washington Post. Web. 14 Jan. 2012.

Click here to read the article

Lipstick in Afghanistan by Roberta Gately

Today I finished Roberta Gately's first novel, a work of fiction called Lipstick in Afghanistan. It tells a story that neither begins nor ends in that completely happy way. Elsa Murphy lives a harsh childhood in Dorchester, MA, becomes an emergency room nurse, and has a desire to help refugees anywhere that needs help. She gets that call for duty, after 9/11, to report to the Bamiyan village in Afghanistan. While there, Elsa finds herself in the middle of a war-zone with a completely different culture and the Taliban fighting against any foreigners or resistance. Elsa charms the strong-willed people of Bamiyan as a worker in the clinic and makes many friends along the way in a life that is much worse than her life in Dorchester.

After finishing this novel, I had to know if any of the characters, plot, or culture aspects of it were true. Roberta Gately establishes herself as a creditable author in her Author's Note. Gately has been a nurse and humanitarian aid worker in many war zones, including Afghanistan. She worked in the village of Bamiyan and her first work of fiction is based on the people she met in Afghanistan and the stories she was told, both the good and the bad. With that, the cultural aspects of this book are really what made it stand out to me. In a male dominated society, where males arrange marriages, rely on wives to produce sons, physically beat their wives if no sons are produced, and  hold the power over the family. Women are expected to hid their hair under their veils and keep to themselves. Gately even writes about the society rules for single men and single women. There are disturbing stories about the actions of the Taliban and the lengths they will go to in order to uphold their views, from murdering twenty Bamiyan men to beating and burning an eight year old girl. The stories Gately was told and how she incorporates them into the novel provide the adventure and tragedy. She combines the tragedy and adventure with forbidden romance and the strong bond of friendship that all kept me reading. The tragedy and adventure of this antithesis society appeal to the pathos of the audience as the Taliban perform formidable acts of murder and abuse. The forgetfulness of Elsa that Bamiyan is a dangerous place and the lengths that the Taliban will go to are what make the ending incompletely happy. The diction of Roberta Gately is direct and plainly to the point as it should be. There is nothing extensive or complicated about a war or murder and its consequences. The story of Elsa Murphy, though it was fiction, and the village of Bamiyan has given me a new perspective on how much I have in my American life and made me realize that I don't even begin to understand what real tragedy is.