Analysis Of David Masciotra's You Don T Protect My Freedom

Author, David Masciotra, in his essay, “You Don’t Protect My Freedom…” he puts in perspective what our nation's “heroes” do behind closed doors. It is clear that Masciotra’s uses his phrasing in order to get a reaction out of people forcing you to think twice about the way we idealize our troops and uses Pathos to extract some emotions from the reader and puts them in the shoes of those in our corrupted military.

As Masciotra’s begins to support his claim his locution reels the reader into the writing and with the dialect he chose and puts together the pieces that make up his argument. In the writing he states “It is equally challenging for anyone reasonable, and not drowning in the syrup of patriotic sentimentality, …and look at the servicemen

of the American military with criticism and skepticism.” In this quote Masciotra’s usage of the phrase “drowning in the syrup of patriotic sentimentality” unquestionably creates a visual for the reader by the way he describes the way we take our veterans and immerses them in the glorification of the American people. The way we sympathize for them in every situation is accurately portrayed in this quote. Also in this passage when Masiotra states “ Police departments everywhere need extensive investigation of their training methods, qualifications for getting on the job, and psychological evaluation.” When he uses the word extensive it changes the demeanor of that sentence because it goes from not just investigating but to a widespread, thorough with immense depth investigation process.

Lastly, in this excerpt “The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in

the military or law enforcement…” the author's choice of words is what really takes this sentence and his point to a different depth. This sentence alone The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness...” slaps you in the face with not only his apparent option but also his broad vocabulary and his way of using it to believe and see things as he views them, even when it's a negative and uncommon view on things.
Although Masciotra’s use of diction and phrasing plays a major component of this writing an almost equal element is his utilization of emotional appeal.

In a quote from his writing “It has become impossible to go a week without reading a story about police brutality, abuse of power and misuse of authority… police assaulting people, including pregnant women, for reasons justifiable only to the insane.” it forces you to put a unpleasant visual of a pregnant woman being mistreated by a person who we are suppose to seek for protection. Similarly when Masciotra says ”38 men are sexually assaulted every single day in the U.S. military. Given that rape and sexual assault are, traditionally, the most underreported crimes, the horrific statistics likely fail to capture the reality of the sexual dungeon that has become the United States military.” it puts you in prospective of how many of these cases happen every single day for these men and women, it isn't just something rare and out of the ordinary for these people, it's their life. He also takes note of the fact that rape is one of the most unreported crimes just proves to show you that even that number of 38 is just the bare minimum of what truly goes on our bases. Finally when Masciotra states “The men and women who do enlist deserve better than to die in the dirt and come home in a bag, or spend their lives in wheelchairs, and their parents should not have to drown in tears and suffer the heartbreak of burying their children.”

it immediately makes you imagine the morbid image of yourself dead in a bag or now spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair incapable of doing the things you loved to do, or having the thought of that being your own child that has to be put to rest really puts you in the emotional distraught that many veterans go through on a day to day.
As shown above the author, David Masciotra, attributes his remarkable writing style to his massive use of rhetoric, in particular his use of word choice and emotional appeal to the audience is what really sets apart his writing from the others.