Patton

When I was reading Patton's speech to his men, I thought of it as a "pep talk" like a football coach would give to his team. He was using words like "bullshit" to excite the guys, rile them up for battle. I imagined at the pauses in his speech men yelling, "HOO_RAH!" But, whenever I watched the clip of the reinactment of Patton's speech, I discovered a different tone. The video was much more somber, and much more serious. The American flag cascading behind the general even made for a somber and serious tone. General Patton's image piercing through the flag's distinct stars and stripes was an intimidating sight. His goal to motivate, encourage, and reassure his men of their American identity was well acheived in this speech through the video. I don't believe that simply reading this speech is enough to experience the rhetoric that General Patton acheived.
Heinrichs argues in many ways that in order to make a good argument, the speaker needs to establish ethos. I think that Patton's ethos preceded him in this speech, but that didn't stop him from using this tactic of rhetoric. Three tools that Heinrichs mentions in Thank You for Arguing include: "1) Show off your experience 2) Bend the rules, and 3) Appear to take the middle course"(Heinrichs, 71). General Patton quickly checked off the first on this list by his preceding reputation as a well known war general in the American army. He bent the rules by talking to his men in a way that wouldn't be typical to an army general. For example, "If not, sometime a German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit" (Patton, 450). And thirdly, the general took the middle road by telling his men that great soldiors weren't necessarily fearless. These soldiors would have their own moments of cowardice that may last hours or months, but real American soldiors don't give up fighting. He made it okay for these men to be human. It was not okay to be a coward or the enemy, but the middle road- a human, better yet, an American.