Thursday, October 7, 2010
Hearts And Minds
Watching this film honestly broke my heart. To see the effects of war and the graphic images the film shows of death and sometimes even worst than death, being barely alive and practically dead. Seeing families destroyed by their losses, one part that truly touched me was seeing a mother driving into her son’s grave. I could almost feel her pain and grief. This film came as a shock to me because I had never seen footage this raw, everyone knows were in a war but its almost as if Americans have become blind to what war really is and the damage it causes to people just like us. Then I start to think to myself, why we are shielded from these harsh images when in reality that’s what is really going on. My professor tells me everything were seeing has been shown on the news and I cannot believe it! I have never seen anything that graphic on the news, people living surrounded by death, beyond doubt I know NBC CBS NY1 CNN or ABC would not show the things I saw in the film. I understand completely why they wouldn’t show this these days on television; Americans would go crazy just like they did during the Vietnam War. I believe the anti-war movement would be even more powerful now than the one at that time. This is the opposite of what the government wants obviously so they hide what is really going on. I see this film and no longer wonder why soldiers come home with mental illnesses, who wouldn’t? I feel scared from just watching it on a screen in my classroom; imagine what it must feel like to live through it. These images were extremely powerful and I suppose did serve there purpose. Before this I had this image in my head of war, just a bunch of good soldiers put somewhere to fight and only hurt the bad guys, this is what we are taught to believe. After seeing the film I will never think that way ever again.
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I agree with you Julie, now imagine if every American saw this film? I feel like what we are taught in grade school, and high school is totally different from what we are learning now. Do you think though that at some point war is necessary? That there might be a shred of truth to the idea of the good soldiers vs. the bad guys? I also agree that if we saw the harsh images Americans opinions on many things would be changed.
ReplyDeleteKrista - You raise an interesting question. Unlike with Vietnam, most people believed that U.S. invovlement in WWII was justified, that it was pretty much good guys against bad guys, as you put it. But the U.S. and U.S. allies killed many civilians then too, in bombings of German cities and when dropping the atom bomb on two Japanese cities. So, the question of whether war is ever justified comes along with the awareness that there is always great suffering, including among 'innocents,' however we think of this.
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