Drew James
English 1302
13 Sep 2012
Rhetorical Analysis Second Draft
For the past twelve years our country has been fight the war on terror, and for ten of those
years we have been fighting a war on two different fronts. With fighting such a large scale war
the country needs men and women that will do the fighting. Since World War 2 United States
government has used a poster of Uncle Sam pointing the finger at the person reading the poster
and saying “I WANT YOU”. Since this poster has been around for so long it must work, but
why is that? Also why is it that troops that respond the country calling them to serve feel as if
they are abandoned by the very government that they serve once they leave the states to enter
into combat. There are a lot of political cartoons about the war and most of contradict the very
poster that drew the service members to enlist in the first place. You must be thinking , how can
a political cartoon contradict a recruiting post that has been around for the better part of sixty
years? To answer this we need to take a closer look at both of the articles in question.
Everyone in the United States and probably all around the world understands that Uncle
Sam is the icon for the united states government. This figure has been the icon for the us since
the war of 1812 after Samuel Wilson wrote the book “Adventures of Uncle Sam”. It is
relatively hard to imagine that a person reading this poster thinks that the U.S. government is
wanting them, but subliminally that is what is happening. There are two main attributes that take
this to a personal level for the reader. First the poster draws your attention by the word you that
is in slightly larger text than the rest of the poster. Then your eyes automatically go up to see the
Drew James
English 1302
13 Sep 2012
finger pointing at you, and all of a sudden you are no longer a just another person looking at the
poster but the poster to it to the level where it is talking directly to you. Since Uncle Sam has
been an icon for so many years there is a lot of tragedy and loss of life that is associated with that
enormous figure. So when you stare into his eyes and the rock solid look of pure determination
on his face it really starts to tug relentlessly on one’s heart strings. After the poster has solidified
all of these emotions in you as you stare aimlessly into Uncle Sam’s face you are overcome with
sense of courage, duty, honor for your country, and a sense of responsibility to join the military
to accomplish goals for the country just as your fore fathers had. While studying the poster one
me even have memories of family members that had died for their country in combat in a fallen
nation, some may feel the sense to fight so that they may ensure the freedom of their family in
the future. Some may even hear the voice of President John F Kennedy saying “Its not what
your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”.
So after the poster has grabbed your attention and has gotten your emotions going you
look at the rest of the poster and start reading the text “I WANT YOU FOR US ARMY”. While
the poster has already established that this is a personal matter and that the government is
directly taking to you, reading the text is now direct saying that the us government want you
specifically to join the military. It also reaffirms this level of individuality by the word “YOU”
in larger text then the rest of the text and in a shape of red that sets it apart from rest of the
poster. So now your pumped, your emotions are raging with the feeling of duty to your country
and drive to fight for freedom and then you finish reading the text at the bottom of the which
Drew James
English 1302
13 Sep 2012
states “nearest recruiting station”. All of a sudden your emotions over whelm you and you feel a
sense of pride that is unsurpassable so you run down to the nearest recruiting station and sign
your life away to the united states military because a poster made you feel like you should.
The military is not all bad, I was in for four years and I spent 15 months in combat and I
liked it. Well I liked the group of guys that I was with over there. Once you get to a combat
zone all of the politics go out of the window. Jeff Danzinger who is a political cartoonist that
was an intelligence officer in Vietnam has been drawing cartoons of the military for years and
has often been criticized harshly for it. A few years ago a commanding general in the pentagon
even accredited him for being responsible for the down fall of the U.S. In this political cartoon
of his there is an illustration of five troop in combat that are taking heavy fire. The terrain takes
you into the mountains of Afghanistan where the fighting is the worst of the entire war. As you
look at the men returning fire and ducking for cover not to get hit, you feel a sense of action
come over yourself. Then your eyes are drawn to one of the men that was been wounded and is
being attended to by the medic. The agonizing look on his face and the position that he is laying
in gives the read some kind sense of pain that he is going through. It also intensifies the amount
of selfless service and courage that he has to be in a situation like that, and the thought of that
alone seeing our troops suffering brings a sort of sorrow that starts deep in your gut and moves
up that makes a lump in your thought and brings tears to your eyes. Then you read the title of
the cartoon “more us casualties in Afghanistan”. With your emotions already being heightened
your heart bleeds with sorrow for our service men.
Drew James
English 1302
13 Sep 2012
Suddenly you are drawn to the caption that states “Of course you understand the
president is most concerned with health care” and your jaw drops. So you start thinking to
yourself “How could something like this happen? How could our troops think that the
government isn’t concerned about their sacrifice and their over-all wellbeing?” As your thought
process grows more in depth to the situation you put yourself in that situation. Then you begin
to say to yourself “If I was in that situation I just wouldn’t fight, I would be more concerned with
just going home.” With your mind now vigorously wrapped around the entire idea of this
atrocious idea, you remember what you have been seeing in the news for the past couple years
and then everything clicks together. There hasn’t been anything significant in the news about
the war for a while and that our government truly is disconnected with the war effort entirely.
The top political leaders of the nation and in the military so complete disregard to the loss of life
and have intentions to plan new strategies to bring a stop the this never ending war.
From personal experience once you get to combat that is how you are treated and those
are the emotions and thoughts that run through your head on a daily basis. Now from analyzing
the first poster we can conclude that the government wants to personally tug on your emotions
and build the feeling of duty to country so that you feel that they are specifically want you to go
into the military to fight. Then going to the cartoon which states if you go to war the government
will just forget about you develops an uneasy feeling in your stomach the United States
government and what the top brass really stand for. This is a complete contradiction to the
poster of Uncle Sam that builds the feeling that the government wants you to be in the military.
Drew James
English 1302
13 Sep 2012
The first thing you going to think to yourself is that this is bull shit and the government shouldn’t
be like this. These two examples are, from my perspective, complete contradictions of
themselves. And me tell you that from my personal experience the recruiting poster does infact
work because that was one of the ideas that made me join the army, yet when I was in combat in
Iraq, these feeling of sorrow and abandonment that the cartoon expose are in fact true. It is an
unfiltered incite to how messed up our government really is, and brings to light what is really
important to the governments agenda.