Exposure:

Wow! It has been a long time since any of us have seen each other. Even longer for me since I was not able to make the screening. I hope you all had a good time. It looked like a lot of fun. It is ironic that for the Platoon screening I was the only one to show up, and yet for this one everybody could make it but me!

Anyway, Hearts and Minds affected me more than any of the other films we have watched thus far. I watched it rather choppily and not under ideal conditions, but it was the first film we have seen which made me feel like crying. It is really the first film that I have seen in a long long while that has had any emotional effect upon me. It is just a sad sad film that makes us realize the hypocrisy of many American actions and forces the viewer to consider the humanity of people other than ourselves.

I gained a much greater understanding into the process of Vietnamization as well. For the first time, I understood that we were grooming South Vietnam to be more like America. We trained the S. Vietnamese soldiers to behave like our own troops, supplied their weaponry, and even began to bring our corporations into their country. Americanization would have been the better phrase for it.

Overall this was an extremely insightful and touching film that will linger with me for the remainder of this course and beyond. It is the first time I have ever really believed or understood the brutality of war.