Hearts & Minds

After watching Hearts & Minds I felt somewhat upset and heartbroken. It was mostly due to the fact that so many people were hurt and so many had died, all of  this for NOTHING. A lot of people were interviewed for this documentary but there were people whose words impacted me. I still remember when a Vietnamese civilian spoke about his experience and he simply responded with strength.

" As long as there is rice we will keep fighting and when the rice runs out we'll plow the fields and keep fighting."

This was very surprising, after all the Vietnamese people had gone through, it was amazing to see that they still had strength and weren't giving up so easily. Hearing Daniel Ellesberg'sdecieved by the same government he supported. I wasn't surprised that he would be included in this documentary because afterall he did leak the "Pentagon Papers".

I felt a little confused with the formatting and organization of the film but after analyzing the film I started to understand why certain things were shown. For example, the scenes of the football games referered to the idea that this war was a game that had to be won. I kept going back to the scene where the pastor or reverend spoke to the soilders as if he was refering to a big footbal game. He spoke of training and how the opposing team had nothing on them. I think these ideas are what kept the soilders fighting without knowing the cause. Also the scene of the brothel mostly represented the fact that although people were getting killed, houses and towns were getting destroyed, this had no immediate effect on Americans back home and even to those fighting in the war.

I still believe that the only reason why the United States went to war in Vietnam was to fufill ideologies. The "most powerful country" must help those other countries in need. I think that every country should take care of their own problems first and then help others. It seems that the history of the United States involves a lot of brown nosing and most of the time the U.S. endes up losing. There is this ideology that it is the duty of the U.S. to help keep democracy alive, it is the duty of the U.S. to interfere in disagreements between countries. George Washington warned about this. The minute the U.S. gets involved with other countries' affairs it will be ruined. This is still true today. Washington died 211 years ago and still government officials haven't realized that he was right all along. Maybe it'll be too late when they realize . . .

The act of showing war images is VERY IMPORTANT. I believe that the public has the right to know the truth behind it all in order to gain trust in their government and see the brutality of war. If images of a burned child or images of houses being completely destroyed were broadcasted years ago why can't they be broadcasted now?