The Village of Ben Suc - Description

"Most of the inhabitants… were engaged in tilling the exceptionally fertile paddies bordering the river and in tending the extensive orchards of mangoes, jackfruit, and an unusual strain of grapefruit that is a famous product of the Saigon River region. The village also supported a small group of merchants…" (p3) also a bicycle shop, hairdresser, pharmacy, restaurants. No electricity, a few second-hand cars.

"Most families kept pigs, chickens, ducks, one or two cows for milk, and a team of water buffaloes for labor, and harvested enough rice and vegetables to sell some… "(p4)

"Troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (usually written 'ARVN' and pronounced 'Arvin' by the Americans) maintained an outpost in Ben Suc from 1955 until late 1964 when it was routed in an attack by the National Liberation Front (or N.L.F, or Vietcong or V.C.), which kidnapped and later executed the government-appointed chief and set up a full governing apparatus of its own.

"The Front demanded--and got--not just the passive support of the Ben Suc villagers but their active participation both in the governing of their own village and in the war effort." (p6)

[The NLF called the village 'liberated' from the Americans and their 'puppet troops.' They actively propagandized against the Americans. They organized associations for the support of the war effort. Schell mentions organizations for youth, farmers, and women. The youth helped to dig bomb shelters and tunnels; the famers gave taxes up to ten percent (on a graded scale); the woman did different things, including making close and nursing. They also agitated to raise women to an equal position with men. There was a 'Village Committee' for administration. They organized and build schools.]

"In short, to the villagers of Ben Suc the National Liberation Front was not a band of roving guerrillas but the full government of their village." (p10)

"The houses were small and trim, most of them with one side open to the weather but protected from the rain by the deep eaves of a thatch-grass roof. The houses were usually set apart by hedges and low trees, so that one house was only half visible from another and difficult to see from the road. … An orderly small yard, containing low-walled coops for chickens and a shed with stalls for cows, adjoined each house. Here and there, between the fields and in the copses, stood the whitewashed waist-high columns and brick walls of Vietnamese tombs, which look like small models of the ruins of once-splendid palaces. It was a tidy, delicately wrought small-scale landscape with short views--not overcrowded but with every square foot of land carefully attended to." (p32)

[The village was a well-run, clean, and social place for the residents. It was integrated into the local government of the NLF for the region. There were no signs of rebellion or contempt for the government. Civil defense (tunnels, bomb shelters) were well made and ubiquitous. Wealthier farmers paid more taxes, older people were not badgered into the new democratic order, but left to their old ways.]