In the film Fog of War, McNamara talks about the Vietnam War and some of the decisions that he had to make during that time period. In the film, he talks about working during World War II, for the Ford Motor Company and during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During World War II, he talks about use of the Atomic Bomb, and how they could have been in deep trouble had they lost the war. Also, this leads to rule number 5 because sometimes there is no need to go overboard when it comes to sending a message. Often times in war many people are unnecessarily killed when less can be killed in order to send the same message. Also, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he explains how no one was thinking clearly, which led to a very close brink of nuclear war. Most of all, it seems as though McNamara is trying to get people to understand his thought process before the Vietnam War and why it turned out the way it did. Many of his experiences before the Vietnam War led to some rash decisions like Tokyo.
The point at which the movie’s point of view changes is the 6th lesson. The first six lessons are more about war and the way in which to go about it. It seems to talk about fighting for your country and remembering that this war is bigger than just yourself. You want to work as one large team in order to be the best you can be as a military unit. Then after the 6th lesson, it goes to a more personal level. Some of them, like 7, 8, and 10 have to do with the mental aspect of war. Many times, war will mess with your mind, but these lessons must be learned in order to be successful. So, the lessons seem to rank from a larger level to a lower level. Whether these are ranked in importance is unclear, but it seems this way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In the film Fog of War, McNamara talks about the Vietnam War and some of the decisions that he had to make during that time period. In the film, he talks about working during World War II, for the Ford Motor Company and during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During World War II, he talks about use of the Atomic Bomb, and how they could have been in deep trouble had they lost the war. Also, this leads to rule number 5 because sometimes there is no need to go overboard when it comes to sending a message. Often times in war many people are unnecessarily killed when less can be killed in order to send the same message. Most of all, it seems as though McNamara is trying to get people to understand his thought process before the Vietnam War and why it turned out the way it did. When he worked before in the Cuban Missile Crisis and during WWII, he experienced nuclear war, and its effects. The use of nuclear war influenced his decision make. Many of his experiences before the Vietnam War led to some rash decisions like Tokyo.
ReplyDeleteThe point at which the movie’s point of view changes is the 6th lesson. The first six lessons are more about war and the way in which to go about it. It seems to talk about fighting for your country and remembering that this war is bigger than just yourself. You want to work as one large team in order to be the best you can be as a military unit. Then after the 6th lesson, it goes to a more personal level. Some of them, like 7, 8, and 10 have to do with the mental aspect of war. Many times, war will mess with your mind, but these lessons must be learned in order to be successful. So, the lessons seem to rank from a larger scale level to a smaller scale level. Whether these are ranked in importance is unclear, but it seems this way. This is because when making a list, the first thoughts are usually written first. It seems as though these important thoughts are about a whole military unit, then they slowly change to a personal level.