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The Village of Ben Suc
BEN SUC was a relatively prosperous farming village thirty miles from Saigon, on the edge of the Iron Triangle, the formidable Vietcong stronghold. It had been “pacified” many times, but because of security leaks no Vietcong were ever captured, and it always reverted to them. Therefore on January 8, 1967, American forces launched a surprise assault kept secret even from their South Vietnamese allies. The plan was to envelop the village, to seal it off, to remove its inhabitants, to destroy its every physical trace, and to level the surrounding jungle.
Jonathan Schell accompanied the operation from its beginning to its successful but dismal end, and reports it in depth as he saw it. This time no one slipped away. The story of the bewildering task of separating the V.C. from ordinary villagers is the dramatic core of the first part of this book.
The 3,500 villagers were moved to a refugee camp in Phu Loi, a barren, treeless “safe” area, with only what possessions they could carry. The bulldozers went to work and flattened every building. For security reasons no advance preparations had been made, and the move became a human and administrative nightmare. The people of Ben Suc were farmers, and there was nothing for them to do at Phu Loi, Mr. Schell offers vivid portraits of one individual after another—women, children, old men—as they are pacified and sink into apathy and despair.
Here is an overwhelmingly affective narrative of American skill and good intentions squandered in a cause made hopeless by misunderstanding, by resistant traditions, and by cultural gaps not only between ourselves and the villagers, but between them and the Saigon government. Mr. Schell’s report is devastating.
Jonathan Schell accompanied the operation from its beginning to its successful but dismal end, and reports it in depth as he saw it. This time no one slipped away. The story of the bewildering task of separating the V.C. from ordinary villagers is the dramatic core of the first part of this book.
The 3,500 villagers were moved to a refugee camp in Phu Loi, a barren, treeless “safe” area, with only what possessions they could carry. The bulldozers went to work and flattened every building. For security reasons no advance preparations had been made, and the move became a human and administrative nightmare. The people of Ben Suc were farmers, and there was nothing for them to do at Phu Loi, Mr. Schell offers vivid portraits of one individual after another—women, children, old men—as they are pacified and sink into apathy and despair.
Here is an overwhelmingly affective narrative of American skill and good intentions squandered in a cause made hopeless by misunderstanding, by resistant traditions, and by cultural gaps not only between ourselves and the villagers, but between them and the Saigon government. Mr. Schell’s report is devastating.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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July 17, 2012
This is a book from 1967 about the U.S. incursion into a small, previously unknown country of Viet Nam. I know Schell best for his pessimistic 1988 book Fate of the Earth about the certain danger of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation. I have just finished reading his 2003 book The Unconquerable World , “a meditation on the history and power of nonviolent action.” When I saw that he had written a small book about war in Viet Nam, I wanted to read what he had to say since I have great respect for him and for what he has tried to share with the world.
Schell was born in 1943 so was 24 when this book, his first, was published. Segments of the book were originally published in The New Yorker magazine. Most currently a lengthy article “Thinking the Unthinkable on Iran” was published in the April 23, 2012 issue of The Nation magazine: http://www.thenation.com/article/1671... . We are fortunate to still have him sharing his thoughts with us.
In a time of war it is a common tactic to dehumanize the enemy, thus making it easier to kill them. The Village of Ben Suc is an effort to humanize this small village of 3500 people in South Viet Nam and to show the complex nature of life in a village in a war zone. In 1964 the village was taken over by the National Liberation Front, the Vietcong. Schell tells of daily life in the village and the continuing relationship with the ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army, even while the village government was controlled by the Vietcong. This strange mixed relationship was a result of a Vietcong strategy of “deriving whatever benefit it can from [South Vietnamese] government and facilities.”
Eventually this village and the area around it became a Vietcong stronghold and received the special attention of the U.S. military.
The book I am reading is 45 years old. It is in quite good shape but it does show its age and lets me know that it is not a new, glossy dust- jacketed book. That is one of the things I like about it. By the look and feel of the book, it takes me back to that time in the mid60s when I was in college and Viet Nam was happening daily on the evening news. And I was wondering if I was going there.
Jonathan Schell was in his early twenties, a journalist embedded with other twenty year olds in a war far, far from home. They were headed out to begin the process of destroying a village.
Schell tells the story of rounding up all the people into the center of town, sorting them out by age and sex, setting up a mess tent and serving the villagers hot dogs and spam, determining who is and is not V.C., transporting all the people and a variety of their possessions out of the area by helicopter and truck and finally leveling the town with bulldozers. This is all to keep the village from being an asset for the Viet Cong. Schell speaks with clear direct words, describing what he saw of the operation including some interrogations. He often heard one of the phrases that many of us associate with Viet Nam. “Winning the hearts and minds.” They did this by removing people from their homes and resettling thousands of them in deplorable conditions. They were being rescued from communism. This is reminiscent of the oft quoted “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Several other communities in the Vietcong controlled “iron triangle” were destroyed the same as Ben Suc along with large swaths of jungle to make the area unusable to the Vietcong. After being cleared the forty square mile area was declared a free fire zone where anyone present could be considered VC and killed. Now that there were vast areas of open land, the area could be patrolled from the air and VC movement within the area would be very difficult. At least that was the idea at the time.
Jonathan Schell was barely more than a twenty year old journalist when he watched Ben Sac attacked, the people evacuated and finally totally destroyed. His writing appeared in “The New Yorker” then became this book that was published in 1967. He does not write about any conclusions he may have reached based on his observations. He lets his descriptions speak for themselves. Many journalists would come to Viet Nam after him and watch as the policies destroyed people and places but failed to win hearts and minds. In retrospect many of us wonder how they managed to think that was ever possible.
Schell was born in 1943 so was 24 when this book, his first, was published. Segments of the book were originally published in The New Yorker magazine. Most currently a lengthy article “Thinking the Unthinkable on Iran” was published in the April 23, 2012 issue of The Nation magazine: http://www.thenation.com/article/1671... . We are fortunate to still have him sharing his thoughts with us.
In a time of war it is a common tactic to dehumanize the enemy, thus making it easier to kill them. The Village of Ben Suc is an effort to humanize this small village of 3500 people in South Viet Nam and to show the complex nature of life in a village in a war zone. In 1964 the village was taken over by the National Liberation Front, the Vietcong. Schell tells of daily life in the village and the continuing relationship with the ARVN, the South Vietnamese Army, even while the village government was controlled by the Vietcong. This strange mixed relationship was a result of a Vietcong strategy of “deriving whatever benefit it can from [South Vietnamese] government and facilities.”
Eventually this village and the area around it became a Vietcong stronghold and received the special attention of the U.S. military.
The book I am reading is 45 years old. It is in quite good shape but it does show its age and lets me know that it is not a new, glossy dust- jacketed book. That is one of the things I like about it. By the look and feel of the book, it takes me back to that time in the mid60s when I was in college and Viet Nam was happening daily on the evening news. And I was wondering if I was going there.
Jonathan Schell was in his early twenties, a journalist embedded with other twenty year olds in a war far, far from home. They were headed out to begin the process of destroying a village.
At seven-twenty, the engines of the sixty helicopters started simultaneously, with a thunderous roar and a storm of dust. After idling his engine for three minutes on the airstrip, our pilot raised his right hand in the air, forming a circle with the forefinger and thumb, to show that he hoped everything would proceed perfectly from then on. The helicopter rose slowly from the airstrip right after the helicopter in front of it had risen. The pilot’s gesture was the only indication that the seven men were on their way to something more than a nine-o’clock job. Rising, one after another, in two parallel lines of thirty, the fleet of sixty helicopters circled the base twice, gaining altitude and tightening their formation, as they did so, until each machine was not more than twenty yards from the one immediately in front of it. Then the fleet, straightening out the two lines, headed south, toward Ben Suc.
Schell tells the story of rounding up all the people into the center of town, sorting them out by age and sex, setting up a mess tent and serving the villagers hot dogs and spam, determining who is and is not V.C., transporting all the people and a variety of their possessions out of the area by helicopter and truck and finally leveling the town with bulldozers. This is all to keep the village from being an asset for the Viet Cong. Schell speaks with clear direct words, describing what he saw of the operation including some interrogations. He often heard one of the phrases that many of us associate with Viet Nam. “Winning the hearts and minds.” They did this by removing people from their homes and resettling thousands of them in deplorable conditions. They were being rescued from communism. This is reminiscent of the oft quoted “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Several other communities in the Vietcong controlled “iron triangle” were destroyed the same as Ben Suc along with large swaths of jungle to make the area unusable to the Vietcong. After being cleared the forty square mile area was declared a free fire zone where anyone present could be considered VC and killed. Now that there were vast areas of open land, the area could be patrolled from the air and VC movement within the area would be very difficult. At least that was the idea at the time.
Jonathan Schell was barely more than a twenty year old journalist when he watched Ben Sac attacked, the people evacuated and finally totally destroyed. His writing appeared in “The New Yorker” then became this book that was published in 1967. He does not write about any conclusions he may have reached based on his observations. He lets his descriptions speak for themselves. Many journalists would come to Viet Nam after him and watch as the policies destroyed people and places but failed to win hearts and minds. In retrospect many of us wonder how they managed to think that was ever possible.
When the demolition teams withdrew, they had flattened the village, but the original plan for the demolition had not yet run its course. Faithful to the initial design, Air Force jets sent their bombs down on the deserted ruins, scorching again the burned foundations of the houses and pulverizing for a second time the heaps of rubble, in the hope of collapsing tunnels too deep and well hidden for the bulldozers to crush – as though, having once decided to destroy it, we were now bent on annihilating every possible indication that the village of Ben Suc had ever existed.
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December 2, 2024Sometimes, it seems to me, a war can best be understood when viewed in microcosm. As here.
It seemed simple to the Americans, or at least to some American at a desk far away. Villages were being infiltrated by Vietcong, the villagers made to pay taxes in rice. If only they could see the advantages of ARVN - and by extension, American - control.
So leaflets were dropped from helicopters, messages blasted from loudspeakers. Get out of Ben Suc, because it will be destroyed. The villagers were rounded up, taken to an open field. Thousands. They could bring what possessions they could carry. The men were singled out and flown to another camp, for interrogation. The field was encircled with barbed wire. Armed ARVN guards had to be reminded to face outside the perimeter. Rough shelters were eventually built, but not enough. American rice was provided, but not enough. The smells of frying Spam wafted over the enclosure from the outside American buildings.
And while all this indoctrination was ongoing, insanely meant to shore up ARVN support, the village of Ben Suc was bombed, bulldozed, and bombed again. And ceased to exist.
American hubris.
It seemed simple to the Americans, or at least to some American at a desk far away. Villages were being infiltrated by Vietcong, the villagers made to pay taxes in rice. If only they could see the advantages of ARVN - and by extension, American - control.
So leaflets were dropped from helicopters, messages blasted from loudspeakers. Get out of Ben Suc, because it will be destroyed. The villagers were rounded up, taken to an open field. Thousands. They could bring what possessions they could carry. The men were singled out and flown to another camp, for interrogation. The field was encircled with barbed wire. Armed ARVN guards had to be reminded to face outside the perimeter. Rough shelters were eventually built, but not enough. American rice was provided, but not enough. The smells of frying Spam wafted over the enclosure from the outside American buildings.
And while all this indoctrination was ongoing, insanely meant to shore up ARVN support, the village of Ben Suc was bombed, bulldozed, and bombed again. And ceased to exist.
American hubris.
October 1, 2018
It's easy to kill innocent people once you dehumanize them. What an unjust, senseless war. As a Navy Hospital Corpsman and Vietnam-era vet I'm forever grateful that I served my four years stateside and managed to avoid service with the Marines other than four months duty on a neurosurgical ward at Great Lakes Naval Hospital. It is understandable how this book shaped Jayne Fonda's views on the Vietnam War. It's a shame that more of her fellow Americans did not read this book in 1967. If they had the anti-war movement might have begun years before it did.
February 7, 2021
I was very much a part of the generation who remembers this war. I had high school classmates who fought in Vietnam. For several years in the 70s, I read every book I could about this war. Then in 2011(?) we traveled as tourists to this country. I was reluctant to go as I never agreed with this war and I was aware of the atrocities committed on both sides. We were never going to win this war and this book about the village of Ben Suc is just one example of the pure insanity of our efforts. So sad.
August 20, 2020
For those of who lived through the Vietnam War
But stayed home. This wonderful book brings the insanely up close and real. To those who were there, it’s a grim reminder of that insanity.
But stayed home. This wonderful book brings the insanely up close and real. To those who were there, it’s a grim reminder of that insanity.
December 24, 2024
Johnathan Schell went to Tokyo for a year. Before returning to the United States, he stopped in Saigon, obtained a press pass and accompanied American soldiers who had been dispatched to destroy the Vietnamese village of Ben Suc. Originally published in the New Yorker in 1967. It is precise and follows the first target of America's Operation Cedar Falls set out to eliminate the guerilla threat by sealing off the region, emptying its villages, and leveling the surrounding jungle of the area known as the Iron Triangle.
February 13, 2025
A calm, straightforward, long-form piece of journalism on the intentional destruction of a Vietnamese village that originally appeared in the New Yorker in 1967. There is no reasonable explanation for American involvement in the Vietnamese conflict, and this article clearly describes the multifaceted absurdity of the situation. It's sad without being maudlin, funny but only in the most bitter way, and frustrating in the portrayal of the glaring apathy of the American military and the powerlessness of the Vietnamese people ("refugees" - in their own country!).
December 20, 2024
Today is the anniversary of the founding of the National Liberation Front in Vietnam. It seems fitting to read Johnathan Schell’s excellent reporting on The Village of Ben Suc, written early in the U.S. involvement in the war and prescient of its end
January 16, 2025
File under hubris and a lesson better learned but never learned. This thin book should be required reading at West Point and throughout the corridors of military and political power in Washington. It won’t, of course. And more is the shame for our future.
May 18, 2025
3.5! (But how do you review a book about the truth of war?)
April 5, 2023
Opposed by Native American tribes, the conservative Whig Party, and many citizens of the still new United States, the Indian Removal act was pushed through by Democracy, barely approved by Congress, and signed into law by Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830. The aim being to remove all Native Americans from the area east of the Mississippi river and south of the Great Lakes and relocate them west of the Mississippi in a fair exchange of land, namely in Oklahoma and Kansas. Believing in the US justice system, Tribes challenged this law in court; unsuccessfully. Those who refused to leave were motivated by force and sent packing by the United States government and herded on a trek west that managed to kill about 60,000 Native Americans from about eighteen different tribes over twenty years after the law's passage. A little more than a hundred years later and about ten thousand miles west, in a tiny country by name of Vietnam, the United States government via the US Army believed that relocation was still a winning strategy and applied this policy to THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC.
Somewhere in the middle of President Johnson's escalation of the ground war, around or after the time of Operation Cedar Falls, THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC was located just to the NW of the Iron Triangle, that notorious forty square mile block of jungle that was a thorn in US military endeavor's side. Long believed to be an enemy stronghold, impenetrable to ARVN troops and laced with tunnels and bunkers, the Iron Triangle supported Viet Cong ops around Saigon. Sitting on the Saigon river in the Binh Duong Province, Ben Suc was seen as a political center for the VC since the French left in '54, and a way station of the not too distant Ho Chi Minh trail. During this time of the Vietnam War villagers that were deemed sympathizers were called "hostile civilians" (rather than the later used and preferred moniker "refugees") and deserved to be relocated, the resulting emptied village destroyed to deny the Viet Cong shelter, food, etc. Depriving the VC of this crucial piece of infrastructure by moving the entire village in a temp camp near a base at Phu Cong, the US military doubled down, emphasizing the fact that in this war there was no middle ground, and according to an Army Captain, "either you're with us or you're against us."
Amplifying the us-versus-them or black-or-white attitude was the populace and all the participants also carrying out a semantic war that left no safe space in the middle. The VC refused to use naming conventions imposed by the puppet regime and the populace just used what those who spoke to them preferred, if it was US soldiers, VC, ARVN, or government reps. Relocating THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC as part of the resettlement program, in place after the failed strategic hamlet program, seems to subvert what is stated as the paragon of military force; the US Army Battalion. Irrespective of this obvious dis of USMC Battalions, the US Military has a history of (mis)using brute force, potentially affecting ARVN behavior, who used water torture to interrogate potential VC suspects, a whole forty years before the US response in the aftermath of 9/11 picked up water boarding for info gathering. Removing these civilians from the tentacles of all military forces, THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC turns to the logistics, problems, and politics of planning, building and running a refugee camp, this one located at Phu Loi, in the Binh Dong Province. Reading like an old instructions film or docu piece that explains some part of the military, THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC has the feel of a journalist's piece, which it is, something that would've been intended for civilians to convince them of US involvement in Vietnam. Not at all lengthy, THE VILLAGE OF BEN SUC is a descriptive heavy weight, giving readers a good read of the atmospherics, dangers, politics, and general situation of the Vietnam War in 1966.
February 22, 2025
The Village of Ben Suc – Một Thảm Kịch Trong Chiến Lược "Tìm và Diệt"
Làng Bến Súc, một chấm nhỏ trên bản đồ cách Sài Gòn chừng 30 dặm về phía Bắc, nằm lọt thỏm trong Tam giác Sắt – một vùng đất rậm rạp, hiểm trở, nơi Việt Cộng đào sâu bám rễ như rễ cây cổ thụ xuyên qua đá. Tháng 1 năm 1967, trong cái mà họ gọi là Chiến dịch Cedar Falls, quân đội Mỹ ập đến đây với sức mạnh không khoan nhượng. Jonathan Schell, một nhà báo trẻ của The New Yorker, đã có mặt, chứng kiến và ghi lại tất cả. Những gì ông viết sau đó, trong The Village of Ben Suc xuất bản năm 1967, không chỉ là một bản báo cáo chiến tranh – nó là một vết cắt sâu vào lớp da thịt của lịch sử, để lộ những mạch máu hỗn loạn và đau đớn bên dưới.
Để thực hiện chiến dịch này, Lực lượng Dã chiến II (II Field Force, Vietnam) do Trung tướng Jonathan O. Seaman chỉ huy đã huy động khoảng 30.000 quân Mỹ và đồng minh, với các đơn vị chủ lực bao gồm:
Sư đoàn 1 Bộ binh Lục quân Hoa Kỳ (sư đoàn Anh cả Đỏ) – đơn vị kỳ cựu trong các chiến dịch lớn của Mỹ từ Thế chiến thứ hai, đóng vai trò xương sống trong các cuộc tấn công trực diện vào vùng Tam Giác Sắt.
Sư đoàn 25 Tia Chớp Nhiệt Đới (Tropic Lightning Division) – chịu trách nhiệm phong tỏa và quét sạch lực lượng Việt Cộng khỏi khu vực Bến Súc.
Lữ đoàn dù 173 (173rd Airborne Brigade) – thực hiện các cuộc nhảy dù chiến thuật và đột kích nhằm tiêu diệt các chỉ huy Việt Cộng.
Sư đoàn Kỵ binh số 11 (11th Armored Cavalry Regiment) – đảm nhiệm vai trò tuần tra và cơ động nhanh, sử dụng xe thiết giáp M113 để càn quét các cứ điểm phòng thủ của đối phương.
Lực lượng Đặc nhiệm Australia và các đơn vị biệt kích Nam Việt Nam – tham gia vào các hoạt động trinh sát và thu thập thông tin tình báo.
Chiến dịch bắt đầu như một cơn lốc. Ngày 8 tháng 1 năm 1967, trực thăng gầm rú trên bầu trời, lính Mỹ đổ xuống, bao vây ngôi làng với tốc độ và sự chính xác của một cỗ máy chiến tranh đã được tra dầu kỹ lưỡng. Dân làng – khoảng 3.500 người, chủ yếu là nông dân sống đời sống giản dị giữa ruộng đồng và lũy tre – bị lùa ra khỏi nhà, tay xách nách mang những gì có thể mang theo. Không có thời gian để thương lượng hay giải thích. Những ngôi nhà tranh bị san phẳng, rừng cây bị chặt bỏ, và toàn bộ khu vực bị cày nát bởi bom đạn và máy ủi. Mục tiêu của người Mỹ rõ ràng: xóa sạch Bến Súc khỏi bản đồ, biến nó từ một cộng đồng sống thành một đống tro tàn, để Việt Cộng không còn nơi ẩn náu.
Schell không chỉ đứng nhìn. Ông ghi lại từng khoảnh khắc – tiếng khóc của trẻ nhỏ lẫn trong tiếng động cơ, ánh mắt hoang mang của những người nông dân khi bị đưa lên xe tải, và sự im lặng nặng nề của trại tị nạn, nơi họ bị tái định cư trong cảnh thiếu thốn và bơ vơ. Qua từng trang sách, ông phơi bày một thực tế phũ phàng: trong nỗ lực phân biệt Việt Cộng với dân thường, quân đội Mỹ đã biến tất cả thành nạn nhân. Những người lính trẻ, nhiều người lần đầu rời xa quê nhà, hành động với sự quyết đoán lạnh lùng, nhưng phía sau đó là một chiến lược mù mờ, nơi chiến thắng được đo bằng số nhà bị phá và số người bị di dời, chứ không phải bằng sự ổn định hay hòa bình.
Schell với phong cách báo chí sắc bén, đã nhìn thấy sự lặp lại của những sai lầm chiến lược. Ông mô tả sự kiện này không chỉ như một bi kịch nhân đạo mà còn là biểu tượng cho cách Mỹ đối mặt với một cuộc chiến mà họ không thực sự hiểu rõ. Thay vì phá hủy Việt Cộng, chiến dịch Cedar Falls lại khiến người dân thêm bất mãn với chính quyền Sài Gòn và đẩy họ về phía quân du kích.
Mặc dù có lợi thế về hỏa lực và nhân lực, quân đội Mỹ dần nhận ra rằng việc kiểm soát lãnh thổ và "giành trái tim, khối óc" của người dân quan trọng hơn nhiều so với các cuộc hành quân quy mô lớn. The Village of Ben Suc là một minh chứng sống động cho điều đó, và Jonathan Schell đã để lại một tác phẩm phơi bày không chỉ thực tế chiến trường mà còn cả những nghịch lý trong chiến lược của Mỹ tại Việt Nam.
Làng Bến Súc, một chấm nhỏ trên bản đồ cách Sài Gòn chừng 30 dặm về phía Bắc, nằm lọt thỏm trong Tam giác Sắt – một vùng đất rậm rạp, hiểm trở, nơi Việt Cộng đào sâu bám rễ như rễ cây cổ thụ xuyên qua đá. Tháng 1 năm 1967, trong cái mà họ gọi là Chiến dịch Cedar Falls, quân đội Mỹ ập đến đây với sức mạnh không khoan nhượng. Jonathan Schell, một nhà báo trẻ của The New Yorker, đã có mặt, chứng kiến và ghi lại tất cả. Những gì ông viết sau đó, trong The Village of Ben Suc xuất bản năm 1967, không chỉ là một bản báo cáo chiến tranh – nó là một vết cắt sâu vào lớp da thịt của lịch sử, để lộ những mạch máu hỗn loạn và đau đớn bên dưới.
Để thực hiện chiến dịch này, Lực lượng Dã chiến II (II Field Force, Vietnam) do Trung tướng Jonathan O. Seaman chỉ huy đã huy động khoảng 30.000 quân Mỹ và đồng minh, với các đơn vị chủ lực bao gồm:
Sư đoàn 1 Bộ binh Lục quân Hoa Kỳ (sư đoàn Anh cả Đỏ) – đơn vị kỳ cựu trong các chiến dịch lớn của Mỹ từ Thế chiến thứ hai, đóng vai trò xương sống trong các cuộc tấn công trực diện vào vùng Tam Giác Sắt.
Sư đoàn 25 Tia Chớp Nhiệt Đới (Tropic Lightning Division) – chịu trách nhiệm phong tỏa và quét sạch lực lượng Việt Cộng khỏi khu vực Bến Súc.
Lữ đoàn dù 173 (173rd Airborne Brigade) – thực hiện các cuộc nhảy dù chiến thuật và đột kích nhằm tiêu diệt các chỉ huy Việt Cộng.
Sư đoàn Kỵ binh số 11 (11th Armored Cavalry Regiment) – đảm nhiệm vai trò tuần tra và cơ động nhanh, sử dụng xe thiết giáp M113 để càn quét các cứ điểm phòng thủ của đối phương.
Lực lượng Đặc nhiệm Australia và các đơn vị biệt kích Nam Việt Nam – tham gia vào các hoạt động trinh sát và thu thập thông tin tình báo.
Chiến dịch bắt đầu như một cơn lốc. Ngày 8 tháng 1 năm 1967, trực thăng gầm rú trên bầu trời, lính Mỹ đổ xuống, bao vây ngôi làng với tốc độ và sự chính xác của một cỗ máy chiến tranh đã được tra dầu kỹ lưỡng. Dân làng – khoảng 3.500 người, chủ yếu là nông dân sống đời sống giản dị giữa ruộng đồng và lũy tre – bị lùa ra khỏi nhà, tay xách nách mang những gì có thể mang theo. Không có thời gian để thương lượng hay giải thích. Những ngôi nhà tranh bị san phẳng, rừng cây bị chặt bỏ, và toàn bộ khu vực bị cày nát bởi bom đạn và máy ủi. Mục tiêu của người Mỹ rõ ràng: xóa sạch Bến Súc khỏi bản đồ, biến nó từ một cộng đồng sống thành một đống tro tàn, để Việt Cộng không còn nơi ẩn náu.
Schell không chỉ đứng nhìn. Ông ghi lại từng khoảnh khắc – tiếng khóc của trẻ nhỏ lẫn trong tiếng động cơ, ánh mắt hoang mang của những người nông dân khi bị đưa lên xe tải, và sự im lặng nặng nề của trại tị nạn, nơi họ bị tái định cư trong cảnh thiếu thốn và bơ vơ. Qua từng trang sách, ông phơi bày một thực tế phũ phàng: trong nỗ lực phân biệt Việt Cộng với dân thường, quân đội Mỹ đã biến tất cả thành nạn nhân. Những người lính trẻ, nhiều người lần đầu rời xa quê nhà, hành động với sự quyết đoán lạnh lùng, nhưng phía sau đó là một chiến lược mù mờ, nơi chiến thắng được đo bằng số nhà bị phá và số người bị di dời, chứ không phải bằng sự ổn định hay hòa bình.
Schell với phong cách báo chí sắc bén, đã nhìn thấy sự lặp lại của những sai lầm chiến lược. Ông mô tả sự kiện này không chỉ như một bi kịch nhân đạo mà còn là biểu tượng cho cách Mỹ đối mặt với một cuộc chiến mà họ không thực sự hiểu rõ. Thay vì phá hủy Việt Cộng, chiến dịch Cedar Falls lại khiến người dân thêm bất mãn với chính quyền Sài Gòn và đẩy họ về phía quân du kích.
Mặc dù có lợi thế về hỏa lực và nhân lực, quân đội Mỹ dần nhận ra rằng việc kiểm soát lãnh thổ và "giành trái tim, khối óc" của người dân quan trọng hơn nhiều so với các cuộc hành quân quy mô lớn. The Village of Ben Suc là một minh chứng sống động cho điều đó, và Jonathan Schell đã để lại một tác phẩm phơi bày không chỉ thực tế chiến trường mà còn cả những nghịch lý trong chiến lược của Mỹ tại Việt Nam.
January 31, 2025
In 1967 at the height of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Jonathan Schell spent time as a reporter in Vietnam, following the relocation by American forces of several thousand people from Ben Suc, a village in South Vietname not far from Saigon, into a refugee camp. They did this to try to stop the Vietcong from operating out of this area.
Ben Suc was a relatively wealthy small village where people had lived for generations. Although few people died in the process and in some sense they were given a somewhat safe place to live, the cruelty of what we were doing to these mostly innocent people - and mostly women, elderly and kids - was appalling.
Mr. Schell wrote an article on his experience for The New Yorker, The Village of Ben Suc, which then became a book. I can hardly stand to read another story on our failed mission in Vietnam, but it is another reminder of how we, with the most powerful military on earth, can find ourselves destroying the lives of innocent people, providing them with little that they want.
This is a gripping story, showing in clear detail how we didn't seem to know who our enemy was, we didn't have an idea of how to fight them and we certainly had little concern for the people of South Vietnam that we were seemingly supporting.
The book tells the detailed story of this relocation, of how we took people who had homes, families and neighbors, living relatively contentedly as farmers, tore them out of their community, moved them into a large barb wired camp with little idea how they would reestablish their means of living. And on our way out, we torched the village.
During and after the relocation, we kept telling people how good this was for them. Mr. Swell shares what he heard from villagers regarding their new life. A young man, 31, describes his life prior to the destruction of his village. "On most days, I would get up a six o'clock, eat, have a bath, and then go out to the fields. At midday, I would come back, have another bath, and eat, and I would have a bath again when I stopped working... I haven't had a bath in four days now... After a bath, you feel healthy and fell like eating a lot... (now we) are here waiting for food, and the water for a bath.
Another man explains that all his things, "our oxen, our rice, our oxcarts, our faming tools, and our furniture" are still in Ben Suc. "Now we have only plain rice to eat - nothing to flavor it, not even salt."
Mr. Swell explains how the Vietnamese are "extremely particular about the color, texture, size, and the flavor of their rice... (they) welcomed the long-grained, brownish, American-grown rice about the way an American would welcome a plate of dog food as a dish that was adequately nutritious, and perhaps not even bad-tasting, but psychologically repellent."
I thought of the Ukraine War where the people of Ukraine have an enemy they hate, who clearly want our help and know exactly what they are protecting. I compared this with the Vietnam War where, as shown so well in the destruction of Ben Suc, we had little idea of who we were fighting, how to fight them, and whether the people we were defending wanted our help. Surely, no one in Ben Suc was glad we had stopped by seemingly for their safety.
Mr. Swell was a young reporter at the time who surely did some growing up himself watching this slow motion disaster from the point of one small village. This is an excellent read on why this war was destined for failure from the start.
Ben Suc was a relatively wealthy small village where people had lived for generations. Although few people died in the process and in some sense they were given a somewhat safe place to live, the cruelty of what we were doing to these mostly innocent people - and mostly women, elderly and kids - was appalling.
Mr. Schell wrote an article on his experience for The New Yorker, The Village of Ben Suc, which then became a book. I can hardly stand to read another story on our failed mission in Vietnam, but it is another reminder of how we, with the most powerful military on earth, can find ourselves destroying the lives of innocent people, providing them with little that they want.
This is a gripping story, showing in clear detail how we didn't seem to know who our enemy was, we didn't have an idea of how to fight them and we certainly had little concern for the people of South Vietnam that we were seemingly supporting.
The book tells the detailed story of this relocation, of how we took people who had homes, families and neighbors, living relatively contentedly as farmers, tore them out of their community, moved them into a large barb wired camp with little idea how they would reestablish their means of living. And on our way out, we torched the village.
During and after the relocation, we kept telling people how good this was for them. Mr. Swell shares what he heard from villagers regarding their new life. A young man, 31, describes his life prior to the destruction of his village. "On most days, I would get up a six o'clock, eat, have a bath, and then go out to the fields. At midday, I would come back, have another bath, and eat, and I would have a bath again when I stopped working... I haven't had a bath in four days now... After a bath, you feel healthy and fell like eating a lot... (now we) are here waiting for food, and the water for a bath.
Another man explains that all his things, "our oxen, our rice, our oxcarts, our faming tools, and our furniture" are still in Ben Suc. "Now we have only plain rice to eat - nothing to flavor it, not even salt."
Mr. Swell explains how the Vietnamese are "extremely particular about the color, texture, size, and the flavor of their rice... (they) welcomed the long-grained, brownish, American-grown rice about the way an American would welcome a plate of dog food as a dish that was adequately nutritious, and perhaps not even bad-tasting, but psychologically repellent."
I thought of the Ukraine War where the people of Ukraine have an enemy they hate, who clearly want our help and know exactly what they are protecting. I compared this with the Vietnam War where, as shown so well in the destruction of Ben Suc, we had little idea of who we were fighting, how to fight them, and whether the people we were defending wanted our help. Surely, no one in Ben Suc was glad we had stopped by seemingly for their safety.
Mr. Swell was a young reporter at the time who surely did some growing up himself watching this slow motion disaster from the point of one small village. This is an excellent read on why this war was destined for failure from the start.
May 6, 2024
Vietnamese vacated violently from village in vain
After working in Indian villages for two years in the Peace Corps, when I returned to America in 1966 I knew that bombing, napalming or just burning villages was not going to win a war for the USA. I often pictured in my mind what would have been the result if they had done that to the villages I knew in India. I took part in anti-war activities and despaired. Our leaders had no clue whatsoever. It’s been a long time since those days, but it seems that nobody has learned too many lessons from history. Well, that’s our not-so-perspicacious human race.
I’ve only just read this report by a young journalist who, by the way, was six months younger than I, but died ten years ago. The events related here are now 57 years in the past, but reading it, I recalled all the anger and regret I felt that my country was doing things like this. I didn’t lose anyone in Vietnam but several of my friends got shot and survived. Over fifty thousand Americans and countless Vietnamese died. Why? For God’s sake, why?
The basic story here is that the Vietcong—leftwing guerillas fighting against foreign control of Vietnam and for a better society (as they saw it)—occupied the prosperous village of Ben Suc, not extremely far from Saigon, the then capital of South Vietnam, and also the whole region around it. To break their hold, the US military, with the help of the South Vietnamese Army, staged a huge operation. They flew in, drove off any Vietcong soldiers, and then evacuated all the villagers, their animals and some of their moveable possessions. They then bulldozed the village and burned all the houses. They also sprayed defoliant on the surrounding forest or otherwise destroyed it. Later, they even bombed the already desolate site in case any Vietcong were hiding in tunnels. The Americans built a kind of concentration camp for the now homeless villagers and tried to supply it with food and other necessities, hoping to start various home industries or finding fields for them to grow crops. As Schell writes of it, without much critical verbiage, you realize what a tragedy had unfolded. And it was all in vain.
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Only some people did know and just followed orders.
Yeah, man, it’s all long ago now, but I still despair.
My 1968 Vintage Books first edition is only 132 small pages. I bought it back in 1973, but never had the heart to read it till now, knowing more or less what I was going to read. If you want to peruse more books about Vietnam, its society, and the war, I suggest you look at the reviews of Stefania Dzhanamova on GR.
After working in Indian villages for two years in the Peace Corps, when I returned to America in 1966 I knew that bombing, napalming or just burning villages was not going to win a war for the USA. I often pictured in my mind what would have been the result if they had done that to the villages I knew in India. I took part in anti-war activities and despaired. Our leaders had no clue whatsoever. It’s been a long time since those days, but it seems that nobody has learned too many lessons from history. Well, that’s our not-so-perspicacious human race.
I’ve only just read this report by a young journalist who, by the way, was six months younger than I, but died ten years ago. The events related here are now 57 years in the past, but reading it, I recalled all the anger and regret I felt that my country was doing things like this. I didn’t lose anyone in Vietnam but several of my friends got shot and survived. Over fifty thousand Americans and countless Vietnamese died. Why? For God’s sake, why?
The basic story here is that the Vietcong—leftwing guerillas fighting against foreign control of Vietnam and for a better society (as they saw it)—occupied the prosperous village of Ben Suc, not extremely far from Saigon, the then capital of South Vietnam, and also the whole region around it. To break their hold, the US military, with the help of the South Vietnamese Army, staged a huge operation. They flew in, drove off any Vietcong soldiers, and then evacuated all the villagers, their animals and some of their moveable possessions. They then bulldozed the village and burned all the houses. They also sprayed defoliant on the surrounding forest or otherwise destroyed it. Later, they even bombed the already desolate site in case any Vietcong were hiding in tunnels. The Americans built a kind of concentration camp for the now homeless villagers and tried to supply it with food and other necessities, hoping to start various home industries or finding fields for them to grow crops. As Schell writes of it, without much critical verbiage, you realize what a tragedy had unfolded. And it was all in vain.
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Only some people did know and just followed orders.
Yeah, man, it’s all long ago now, but I still despair.
My 1968 Vintage Books first edition is only 132 small pages. I bought it back in 1973, but never had the heart to read it till now, knowing more or less what I was going to read. If you want to peruse more books about Vietnam, its society, and the war, I suggest you look at the reviews of Stefania Dzhanamova on GR.
February 28, 2025
Tells it as it is, very short and direct.
Which is really the most fascinating part of the whole book.
You get to follow along an unfolding disaster, though “unfolding” is hardly the right word because really the whole thing was delivered as a disaster and the unfolding was really just a spreading, smearing around of shit.
Operation Cedar Falls: trying the same failure again (strategic hamlet cough cough concentration camp) but bigger and faster.
So, following along practically bullet point by bullet point of the whole operation begs the question without needing to beg at all: why on earth did anyone think this was a good idea? That��s the wonder behind this book. And the book answers that question in the only way it can, without speculation and in the words of the people who ran the show.
Highlight is definetly the interviews with the displaced villagers of Ben Suc (and other places) at the end. Dislocation, dispossessed, abused, behind barbed wire, knowing that their homes were about to be razed to the ground (a fact that was a supposed secret, so secret the US forces didn’t even tell the ARVN about it lol), the, erhm, “refugees” can’t help but laugh through the questions they are asked.
This book says a lot about a lot of things and that’s greatly thanks to Schell’s backseat, journalistic writing. Tells it as it is, just like the people of Ben Suc knew it.
Reading this alongside “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” and even “Collapse of the Soviet Union,” as I am now, is a really good way to drop any remaining faith in our government down the deep well of history. Or, if you don’t care so much for blaming government(s) full stop, this book is another great peek into the plans of mice and men that go awry due to organizational fissures those aforementioned mice and men sometimes ignore, sometimes squeeze themselves into.
Like the villagers, I can’t help but smile a little bit thinking about how these foreign policy disasters kept playing on repeat for over half a century. Though, that mischievous smile fades pretty quickly when I start to think about the lives wasted in service to this cyclical stupidity.
Overall an engaging, quick, and in many ways deeply evocative read. The facts speak for themselves, or if not exactly “facts” then tableaux and situations, and Schell is a good guide. Pairs well with anything about the GWOT.
Which is really the most fascinating part of the whole book.
You get to follow along an unfolding disaster, though “unfolding” is hardly the right word because really the whole thing was delivered as a disaster and the unfolding was really just a spreading, smearing around of shit.
Operation Cedar Falls: trying the same failure again (strategic hamlet cough cough concentration camp) but bigger and faster.
So, following along practically bullet point by bullet point of the whole operation begs the question without needing to beg at all: why on earth did anyone think this was a good idea? That��s the wonder behind this book. And the book answers that question in the only way it can, without speculation and in the words of the people who ran the show.
Highlight is definetly the interviews with the displaced villagers of Ben Suc (and other places) at the end. Dislocation, dispossessed, abused, behind barbed wire, knowing that their homes were about to be razed to the ground (a fact that was a supposed secret, so secret the US forces didn’t even tell the ARVN about it lol), the, erhm, “refugees” can’t help but laugh through the questions they are asked.
This book says a lot about a lot of things and that’s greatly thanks to Schell’s backseat, journalistic writing. Tells it as it is, just like the people of Ben Suc knew it.
Reading this alongside “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” and even “Collapse of the Soviet Union,” as I am now, is a really good way to drop any remaining faith in our government down the deep well of history. Or, if you don’t care so much for blaming government(s) full stop, this book is another great peek into the plans of mice and men that go awry due to organizational fissures those aforementioned mice and men sometimes ignore, sometimes squeeze themselves into.
Like the villagers, I can’t help but smile a little bit thinking about how these foreign policy disasters kept playing on repeat for over half a century. Though, that mischievous smile fades pretty quickly when I start to think about the lives wasted in service to this cyclical stupidity.
Overall an engaging, quick, and in many ways deeply evocative read. The facts speak for themselves, or if not exactly “facts” then tableaux and situations, and Schell is a good guide. Pairs well with anything about the GWOT.
June 8, 2025
Since my high school days, I have been a stanch advocate of magazines. Fashion, of course, at least back in the day. (Ah, Seventeen, you were a teen age dream.) But many others as well. Fought my way through many a Scientific American. Roamed the world with National Geographic. All the generic news magazines, (was definitely Team Time) as well as many of the more partisan sort, although many wussed out as years went by. But my one tried and true was The New Yorker. It was pricy, so I couldn’t always afford it, but it has always been at the top of my list. And just gotta say, it is fierce these days. It has always been a literary/political magazine above all, and they have been known, from time to time, to devote an entire issue to one story. Most famously, it was Hiroshima, by John Hershey, but this book was another example.
In 1966, when The New Yorker sent Schell over to cover the story, America had just started drafting soldiers and sending them to Viet Nam. The problem was that none of them quite knew why. As Wallace Shawn, Schell’s editor, put it,
they had no idea why they were there in Viet Nam, they had no idea of what they were supposed to do there, they had no idea what sort of danger these Vietnamese peasants could possibly pose to their own American families back home; they had no idea what their enemy was fighting for; and they had no idea why they were supposed to kill certain Vietnamese peasants but not others, and what exactly it was about those they were assigned to kill that made them worth of death. This applied to most of the officers as well as the ordinary grunts.
The village of Ben Suc, the operation that Schell was present for, was in a location that was apparently considered to be too attractive to the enemy, so the entire peaceful community was evacuated, relocated to land further down steam that was far less useful with absolutely no prep on the part of the rather confused American troops. The original village was bombed into oblivion, and needless to say, the entire operation was FUBAR beyond belief. Schell left after that, but as we all know, things were to get much worse. As pointless a war as there ever was.
In 1966, when The New Yorker sent Schell over to cover the story, America had just started drafting soldiers and sending them to Viet Nam. The problem was that none of them quite knew why. As Wallace Shawn, Schell’s editor, put it,
they had no idea why they were there in Viet Nam, they had no idea of what they were supposed to do there, they had no idea what sort of danger these Vietnamese peasants could possibly pose to their own American families back home; they had no idea what their enemy was fighting for; and they had no idea why they were supposed to kill certain Vietnamese peasants but not others, and what exactly it was about those they were assigned to kill that made them worth of death. This applied to most of the officers as well as the ordinary grunts.
The village of Ben Suc, the operation that Schell was present for, was in a location that was apparently considered to be too attractive to the enemy, so the entire peaceful community was evacuated, relocated to land further down steam that was far less useful with absolutely no prep on the part of the rather confused American troops. The original village was bombed into oblivion, and needless to say, the entire operation was FUBAR beyond belief. Schell left after that, but as we all know, things were to get much worse. As pointless a war as there ever was.
December 27, 2024
The book was the New York Review Classic (NYRB) classic selection for December 2024. Originally published in the July 8, 1967, issue of The New Yorker, this is a factual retelling of the American “Cedar Rapids” campaign to create free zone in an area of Vietnam bordering on Cambodia and supposedly to show much better the Vietnamese people would be than under the Viet Cong. It is filled with insensitive and misguided statements by American Army personnel and advisors about the Vietnamese people the Americans displaced - pretty typical of the time (and probably even now). The whole campaign was ill planned, under supported In materiel and timing and basically a “bust.” But as you read this short piece of journalism you come to see the arrogance of America in thinking it could stave off the Communist rebels who wanted their homeland back after centuries of colonialism (first France and then the Americans). Communism, a word still bandied today but still remains totally misunderstood by a country that seeks to believe Christianity is somehow the best choice for everything in life, is the rationale underlying the actions in this article. While this is not a theme per se in the article, the underlying principle of America’s support and involvement in the Vietnamese conflict is very much related to Communism - rooting out the insurgents because somehow America had the better answer. This is an important read I believe. It helps in understanding what motivates conflict and why those leading it often have misguided, cruel and stupid ideas.
December 4, 2023
The US military, with vast resources, evacuated villages that were enemy strongholds and “made the rubble bounce.” Structures were leveled. Tunnel networks were destroyed. Sound familiar (IDF/Hamas)? The USA attempted to win the strategic military war and the Vietnamese people’s “hearts and minds.” Historical spoiler alert: we failed. In this book you’ll find some of the reasons why we failed.
This was originally a 1967 (book length) New Yorker magazine piece by a 24-year-old American, Jonathan Schell, who, without press credentials, stopped in Vietnam on his way home from Japan. He gives an account of an operation to clear Ben Suc village. From his reporting, we get a sense of the villager’s familial love and loss. The Americans and ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) seem disorganized and careless; even cruel and disrespectful. What would become tropes, featured in countless popular Vietnam War movies, are in this book. Apparently, for Jane Fonda, it was seminal and influenced her decision to visit America’s then enemy. The book is a simple account of what Schell observed. It is an important work.
This was originally a 1967 (book length) New Yorker magazine piece by a 24-year-old American, Jonathan Schell, who, without press credentials, stopped in Vietnam on his way home from Japan. He gives an account of an operation to clear Ben Suc village. From his reporting, we get a sense of the villager’s familial love and loss. The Americans and ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) seem disorganized and careless; even cruel and disrespectful. What would become tropes, featured in countless popular Vietnam War movies, are in this book. Apparently, for Jane Fonda, it was seminal and influenced her decision to visit America’s then enemy. The book is a simple account of what Schell observed. It is an important work.
January 26, 2025
This was originally published in 1967, and it describes what an American journalist saw and heard during in a small village in the vicinity of Saigon during a brief visit. It describes the activities of villagers, American GIs, and Vietnamese soldiers. Basically, one arm of the military was bombing a village, and other arm of the military was building a refugee camp. "Progress" was measure in acres of jungle that had been clear-cut and how many hours of propaganda recordings had been aired. Reading this hurt my brain.
It was interesting to read this right after a book about WWII. A simplistic comparison of America's war in WWII to its war in Vietnam might be summarized as follows: one was highly critical and was fought with barely enough equipment, while the other was not critical and was fought with excessive equipment.
It was interesting to read this right after a book about WWII. A simplistic comparison of America's war in WWII to its war in Vietnam might be summarized as follows: one was highly critical and was fought with barely enough equipment, while the other was not critical and was fought with excessive equipment.
November 30, 2024
This is excellent reportage. Of course what he chooses to report is selective in some minimal sense, but the obvious absurdity of the American presence and approach to Vietnam does not need to be stated. There are no polemics. There are no accusations. There are the voices of those involved and descriptions of events and places. And any reader will draw the obvious conclusion. What he has done here is not easy to do, both in terms of journalistic writing, as well as the ability to see what is right in front of his nose, absent ideological framing.
If I were teaching contemporary American history in high school this would be on the syllabus when we get to Vietnam.
If I were teaching contemporary American history in high school this would be on the syllabus when we get to Vietnam.
May 9, 2025
Fascinating use of the passive voice. It’s like, you don’t need to have active voice when describing the ridiculous horrors perpetrated by the US in Vietnam. To simply describe them in enough. No one, when reading such a thoroughly documented piece on even what must be 0.0001% of the war, can deny them.
Great that the last sentence is the first time that active voice is used too. A fantastic touch to a wonderful and eye opening book.
Great that the last sentence is the first time that active voice is used too. A fantastic touch to a wonderful and eye opening book.
November 2, 2024
The story of an American military operation in 1967 and a metaphor for the futile, unwinnable approach to the Vietnam conflict. It actually seems a bit dated. The real-life characters in this book have since been immortalized in books and film as the stupid, arrogant and cruel leaders of the doomed U.S. policies.
April 1, 2025
I certainly was grateful to Mr. Schell for his clear-eyed reporting of the United States Army's relocation of an entire village's population in Vietnam during the "early" (1966/1967) days of the war, followed by its utter destruction. The disconnect between policy and reality was tragically absurd, and he rendered that well and with wry black humor. But I found his prose almost "too" impartial.
February 19, 2025
I enjoyed Wallace Shawn’s article in NYRB about this book and his friend Jonathan Schell more than I enjoyed the book itself. For Vietnam reading I would recommend more Herr’s Dispatches, Sack’s M, Bowden’s Hue 1968, and Marlantes’ Matterhorn.
October 24, 2024
Originally a New Yorker article and it reads that way. Slight on details. And VERY slight on the plight of the Vietnamese involved. Point of view is very reportorial and distant.
December 30, 2024
The introduction by Wallace Shawn adds context that highlights the importance and quality of this book.
April 5, 2025
The gold standard of war reportage. Jonathan Schell humanizes "the enemy" by simply telling the truth.
May 10, 2025
I know I am working with half a century of hindsight, but reading this, it is hard to see how anyone thought this was going to work.
May 20, 2025
A damning report on the American military in Vietnam, done entirely by simply reporting the events as they happened. The last paragraph is an all-time classic of New Journalism.
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