The Village of Ben Suc

(Paperback)

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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 Vietcongs 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 this book. Here is an overwhelmingly affecting 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. With a new introduction by Wallace Shawn, a classic work of war reportage that describes, with unblinking vision, the systematic leveling of a Vietnamese village by American troops. 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 Vietcongs 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 this book. Here is an overwhelmingly affecting 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.

Author Bio

Jonathan Schell (1943-2014) was a writer of nonfiction who, in his work, explored warfare and the consequences of nuclear weaponry. His book The Fate of the Earth won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Critics Award. He was a staff writer at The New Yorker for two decades. Wallace Shawn is a writer and actor known for his roles in popular films such as The Princess Bride, Clueless, and My Dinner with Andre, which he co-wrote. His father, William Shawn, was the editor of The New Yorker for many years.