The Village of Ben Suc - Hard to understand their mentality

[Talking with an American Intelligence officer acting as advisor to the ARVN interrogators of captured civilians: ] "They're not telling us much. Sometimes they'll just tell you, 'Hey, I'm a V.C.' You know--proud. Today, we had one old man who told us his son was in the V.C. He was proud of it." Then, shaking his head again, he said with emphasis, as though he were finally puttiing his finger on the real cause of the difficulty, "You know, they're not friendly to us at this place, that's the problem. If you build up some kind of trust, then, once some of them come over to your side, they'll tell you anything. Their brother will be standing near them and they'll tell you, 'Him? He's my brother. He's a V.C.' It's hard to understand their mentality." (p57)

"Half of the V.C.s are just deluded kids. They don't know what they're doing or why. But the V.C. operates through terror. Take this village. Maybe everybody doesn't want to be a V.C., but they get forced into it with terror. …' At that moment, a helicopter came in sight five hundred yards away, cruising low over the woods and emitting a steady chattering sound that was too loud to be the engine alone. Breaking off his explanation to look up, Captain Shipman said, 'Now, there's a new technique they've developed. That sound you hear is a 7.62-calibre automatic weapon on the side. They have a hell of a time finding the V.C. from the air, so now when they hear that there's a V.C. in the area, they'll come in and spray a whole field with fire. Then you see, any V.C.s hiding below will get up and run, and you can go after them." (p58)

[What would V.C. 'terror' look like if strafing people at random from the air is just a new 'American technique?']