form, a uniform he takes off on the plane and stuffs into a suitcase. The real reason for the war is something that seems to elude him and that in some ways he does not ponder too much. For O'Brien and the men in Vietnam, survival is more important than analyzing why they have been sent there in the first place.
The documentary feature Hearts and Minds offers a complex analysis of the Vietnam War, but its basic thesis is clear and easy to identify--the filmmakers see the American involvement in the war as wrong and the policies pursued as both foolish and different from what the American people were being told. At the time when the film was made, this was a more daring statement than it seems today given that the country eventually came around to the same point of view as that taken by the film. Indeed, the film came out in 1974, which was about the same time that the public started shifting in droves to a similar point of view so that the U.S. had little choice but to get out of Vietnam as had been demanded by critics for some time.
The title of the film is deliberately ironic and serves to define the tone to be taken by the filmmaker. The U.S. advisors in Vietnam said that they wanted to win the hearts and minds of the populace, meaning to get the people on our side and so to win the war by winning friends. However, this was not a viable strategy in a country where allegiances were difficult to determine and where the policy was less geared to win
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