Need for Peace: The Veterans Search for Healing - Speech Analysis Essay

The speech was given by Steven T Banko III to commemorate the effects of the 1st and 2nd world war to the Veterans and thus a need for peace. He tends to give the clarity about the war and the need for the people to change their habits as far as war is concerned and seeks for peace in the society. The author states that due to the failure of the forefathers to tell the truth about the war aftermath, the people still have the feeling that they can handle another war. Some due to lack of the truth still believe that they were not very strong to deal with the war as their ancestors did and the current generation is a collection of weak soldiers (Banko 1). The feeling makes most of the soldiers to complain too often but blurs and wallows in their sufferings. However, the truth behind it is that the society had failed to inform them about the dangers of war into their lives and the costs it puts on to the people. For example, when one goes to war and kills some people, the guilt of killing others will not be over, and it will live with the soldier. It will make the people live with the problem, and they cannot be as normal as they were before the war. The whole blame is for the forefathers since they failed to unveil for the current generation the truth about wars. The old generation never complained, but they had allowed the current generation to believe that their war was just like their war (Banko,1). These make peace not to prevail in the current generation's society hence leading to the preparation of the present generation survivors since the solution to the aftermath of war is not yet to be found. War has a lot of adverse effects on the lives of the combats. They tend to suffer from the relationships, romance, and finances. However, the major conflicts lie within the internal self of a soldier since it is not easy to find the familiar versions of ourselves, especially after war. Thus the war affects the mind and the body of the soldiers as well as other victims. The speech was given at the appropriate time when the Vietnam society was still ready to face another war even though the effects of the first and 2nd world war had taken root in their society. It mainly aimed to restore peace among the veterans and enlighten them about the secrets which lie behind the war. It was also to give a realization that in the past, people believed that it was sweet and fitting to die for the security of one's country. However, in the modern war, there is nothing neither sweet nor fitting, and people tend to die like dogs for no good reason. It was also to enlighten the society so as to think about how to manage the consequences of war as oppose to only challenging soldiers to prepare and go to war.

During the presentation of the speech, Steven used different verbal and non-verbal cues so as to make the words effective to the context. Some of the non-verbal techniques he used include the body orientation, facial expression, and nuances of the voices (Polzin 3)

. By using the tonal variation, he expressed the sad situations as well as shooting the questions while explaining the reasons as to why the government and the medical practitioners could take too long to realize the consequences of war. Besides, he used the facial expression to show how it is sad to lose the soldiers into war without a genuine course and expressed the need for the society to stop going to war and embrace peace by the use of body movement, gestures, and orientations. These play a role in justifying the extent to which peace is needed in the Vietnam communities as well as the country as a whole since it tends to be very important.

The organization of the speech is excellent and plays a significant role in educating the audience and allowing them to know the courses and consequences of the matter at hand(war).Steven opens the speech by giving the current nature and attitude of people about war, develop the body by identifying the courses and effects of war in the contemporary society coupled with the questions on why things can happen in such a manner and the authorities does not take any action against it. Eventually, he summarizes it by giving the audience an opportunity to judge the reason as to why people should be left to die without a proper mechanism to judge their merits of death. The arrangement thus makes the audience to think about the topic and develop a mechanism of ensuring that peace prevails in the society.

In the speech, there are some rhetorical proofs which can be evident in the society. For instance, the veteran still believed that they could still be able to handle more than one war after the killings which they had experienced during the first and the Second World War. The situation shows that the spirit of war has been rooted among the Vietnamese to the extent that it is not easy to change their perception of war. Still, people still suffer from the consequences of war and soldiers are dying like dogs for no good reasons. Due to this, the speaker tries to persuade them to embrace peace by citing the damages and consequences of war. Some of the dangers he mentioned to convince them to include death, trauma and internal suffering. He achieved this by embracing the high level of pathos through the use of facial expression, wise choice of words and tonal variation so as to attract pity and a feeling of sadness for the past lives which have been lost due to war and a call for an immediate end of the wary feelings.

References

"Examples of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos." examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-ethos-logos-and-pathos.html.Polzin, T. "Verbal and non-verbal cues in the communication of emotions."

2000 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37100), doi:10.1109/icassp.2000.859332.Banko S.T. Memories of War; Need for Peace: The Veterans Search for Healing.2008