Outside Reading Post A

Seven Roads To Hell: A Screaming Eagle At Bastogne by Donald R. Burgett

Vocab
Bastard Units (5) - military term for a unit not permanently assigned or attached to a higher field headquarters

Inexorably (7) [Inexorable] - grim: not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty


Appeals
1. "At the onset, when others abandoned the front, we stood voluntarily in defense of Bastogne, just as our forefathers did at Bunker Hill and the Alamo. We stood against overwealming enemy manpower, firepower, and armor-and we held" (xi). This is an emotional appeal because it relates to the reader that they want to find out more and get more deep into the actual events.


2. "Ragged, cold, hungry, battered, low on ammunition and short of weapons, the men of the 101st Airborne Division held as ordered... We held as ordered one against nine, until our forces could gather themselves to enter the fray" (xii). I would consider this a logical and emotional appeal because it has facts, examples, and also it shows what kind of state they were in, which reaches out to the reader.


3. "Boots stayed soggy on our feet and trench foot prevailed. Our jumpsuits were filthy, ragged, and torn. We didn't have a real bath in all the seventy-two days we were in action" (6). This is a emotional appeal because it has incidents in it and it relates to the reader what they had to experience.


Quote
"Time after time I would see these same men at mail call, standing at the outer fringes of the group, looking, listening, waiting, eyeing each letter as a name was called and the letter was passed back from hand to hand to the recipient. But these few troopers, good men all, never received a letter. I knew one of those men pretty well and asked him one day if he ever received any mail. "Nope", he replied.
"Then why do you come to each mail call?" I asked.
"I don't know. It's just that someday, maybe . . ."
I thought this was a really important and significant quote in this part of the book I read because these paratroopers were so far away from home and family and friends they didn't really have anything to enjoy. They had to constantly worry about being attacked and the horrible conditions but little things even like packages from home were really important to all of them and so I thought it was an excellent quote.

Theme
I haven't really gotten into the core of the book yet but a very strong emerging theme seems to be all the emotional appeals about the actual events in the book but not only that but the conditions and all the hardships the soldiers had to go through just to survive another day.