Proof (Hearts and Minds)

I’m starting to see now, the different point of views and arguments the different authors are trying to portray. Yes, Hearts and Minds showed all of the craziness and absurdities that American soldiers acted throughout the Vietnam War, but it was just expressing the argument Peter Davis wanted to make. Full Metal Jacket and Platoon kind of pushed towards the ‘in favor of America’ argument, which had their own way of arguing as well. Although Full Metal Jacket and Platoon used acting to show their argument, Hearts and Minds used real footage from interviews and documentaries of the war to prove their argument, which to me, provides a stronger proof of evidence.

What blew me away was the fact that I understood what the Vietnamese were saying when they were being interviewed, I felt like I had a connection with them because I can sympathize with how they feel. Their culture is the same as my culture at my house, they speak what I speak at home and it really did tear me inside. It tore me inside and took me into a different realm while watching this documentary because of what some of the scenes showed. One particular scene I remember was at around 22 minutes and 30 seconds, where the woman was talking about how her sister died because of the bomb. “I’m so unhappy, my sister died and I have no home left…Can’t do anything for a living now, I’m old and weak,” This quote from the woman broke my heart, I don’t think anyone can fully understand how deep this is compared to a fluent speaker because it’s that much deeper and heart dropping. This scene made me believe this argument. The director kept filming the two old women even after they stopped talking, just made me feel exactly how they felt. Davis made great use of ethos right at that point.

“What hurts the most…I was so proud to be an American…and all of that is gone, that’s what I’m bitter about, that’s what hurts.” This quote was made by a veteran in the movie at the time frame between 14-16 minutes. This quote was made by an actual American veteran! How much more real can this get?! How much more proof do we need?! This is such a great interview to show in the documentary to help prove an argument in Davis’s favor. He went on to say how he was dying on “shitty” ground. Apparently he had no idea what he was fighting for. He just knew the battle tactics and went with it, when he was hit and realized he was dying, he first thought about his wife, realizing he was losing everything he had because of this war.
Peter Davis made a really good argument against the Americans in the Vietnam War by not only showing the catastrophic casualties that the natives/villagers of Vietnam took, but also into the minds of the American veterans and soldiers and how they were affected or what they thought about killing the Vietnamese. This documentary used a lot of ethos, emotional appeals to the audience, which captivated me as a part of the audience. I liked this eye-opening documentary, it taught me so much about what the Vietnamese were going through, just the Vietnamese natives/villagers, not really much about the War between the Americans and the Vietcongs.

ps. I try italicizing, but it makes my document/typing weird, but I do know that there has to be italicizing in my writing!