The Heavy Heart of a Soldier: Apology as Resistance

After video footage of a U.S. attack on civilians in Iraq had surfaced two American soldiers publicly apologized. This chapter theorizes public apologies from members of one group to another in the absence of official apologies from representatives of their states. It proposes that this apology served as a rhetorical mode of resistance to official policies and attitudes of the rhetors' own collectivity toward another. The genre of apology thus provides opportunities for (re-)claiming rhetorical agency in opposition to official silence and denials toward injustice as rhetors reject the moral authority of their own leadership and speak for themselves.