Customer Reviews

The Real War: The Classic Reporting on the Vietnam War

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Real War: The Classic Reporting On The Vietnam War is a Jonathan Schell's outstanding commentaries on the American military operations in Vietnam and his post-war reflections a decade later. In the first part, "The Village of Ben Suc", Schell takes the reader in the action and terror that was the Vietnam war with his descriptions of the frustration and desperation of American soldiers caught up in the brutalities of bloody conflict. In the second part, "The Military Half", Schell describes the destruction of two entire provinces in South Vietnam by American bombing and ground operations, with first-hand accounts of these extensive operations and their horrific results. Rarely has a writer been so able and capable of recreating and conveying the sights, sounds, paranoia, and rage of modern frontline warfare.

Schell's The Real War is a valuable recollection of the Viet-Nam War as experienced by the author in 1966 and 67. Schell who travelled to Viet Nam as a journalist with The New Yorker in those years paints a vivid picture of not only the war and its operation, but of the lives of the men of the allied forces and people of Viet-Nam who lived it.
The first section of the book, which shares the book's title, makes Schell's book a particularly apt book to read in this day and age, as many of the statements written there pretaining to Viet-Nam, can theoretically pretain to the current situation in Iraq.
This book came highly recommended to me, and I in turn pass on that recommendation to anyone interested in the subject. I wish I had got my hands on this book years ago.

I probably have quite a minority view on this book, even though I found it to be clearly worth reading. To me, the best part of this book is the first essay "The Real War", which, even though it's the title of the book, is presented as more of an introduction to the other two stories. This essay contains writing which is so good (even though I disagree with some of his left leaning political conclusions) it had me saying out loud 'this guy can really write'. It also had some very thought provoking material which any serious student of the Vietnam War should read and consider.

I also enjoyed his presentation of "The Military Half" and his experience flying with the Forward Air Controllers. It gave me an idea of just how these pilots worked with the air arsenal and the ground commanders to wreak havoc on the ground. However, I found this story and "The Village of Ben Suc" to be somewhat repetive in theme and content and maybe not organized as well as it could have been to make the author's points. As a result, the enthusiasm I had for reading this book and its first essay didn't survive to the end of the book. In other words, I relished reading the first essay and didn't have nearly as much enthusiasm by the time I finished the book.

All that is needed to expose the darkness is the light and this is done in this book by just giving the facts in a very readable way. My advice to those who would like to wave the flag: read this book and save face! Thanks, Lloy

Jonathan Schell's Vietnam reporting is fake. He has portrayed himself as an expert in Vietnam, with little truth.

His story written in "The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides" by Christian Appy has a number of assertions that must be a fabrication. Mr. Schell tells us that he returned from studies in Japan on an around the world ticket, stopping off in Vietnam. (It was very hard for civilians to get a visa to wartime Vietnam, but let us suppose that is the truth). Then he looks up and is befriended by two famous French journalists, Francois Sully and Bernard Fall, who help him become an accredited journalist with the Harvard Crimson school newspaper. Fall and Sully are dead, so cannot support or refute this claim.

His fake Harvard Crimson credentials gives him entry to military units all over Vietnam, he says.

Here are a few direct quotes:

"So in Quang Ngai I started going up in forward air control (FAC) planes - little Cessna two-seater spotter planes that would direct the pilots to their targets. Those little planes were constantly turning and twisting, in part to avoid ground fire. "

"But I had my little notebook right there in the plane and the setup was unbelievable for reporting."

"The quotes were coming right into the earphones and I wrote them down as if it were a lecture at Harvard. It was an amazing stroke of journalist luck."

"The idea that the US military was operating under constraints in South Vietnam is ridiculous. We pulverize villages from the air if we merely imagined that we received hostile fire. I wintered if with my own eyes and I saw the leaflets we dropped which said, "if you fire on us, we will destroy your village," and then a follow-up leaflet that said, "You did fire on us, and we did destroy your Village."

__________

A two person spotter aircraft is a busy place. The pilot is maneuvering, flying, moving up and down and around to see the target while not getting shot down, talking on the radio, and shooting rockets to mark the target. The other pilot / controller is also very busy, trying to see where friendly forces are located, where the enemy is, trying to read the map and find the right coordinates, and calling for support or fire on several different radios, talking to the ground FAC, the pilots, the DASC, and the pilot.

These pilots / controllers are usually mature college graduates, and Commissioned Officers. And they are careful guys - the non careful guys are already dead.

Mr. Schell says he replaced the second FAC, and took numerous

trips with the pilot, who somehow did all these functions by himself.

Extremely unlikely. Schell tells us he sees repeated war crimes, with the FAC calling in air bombing missions on innocent villages. If so, why did Schell not turn these murderers in to the authorities? Any normal person would do so - would you or I stand by and watch cold blooded murder and not at least try to stop it?

How about some names of the murderer pilots, their units, and dates?

He asks us to believe that a Commissioned Officer of the US takes him along on numerous joy rides where he calls in jets, usually with two man crews in two or four aircraft flights, and bombs villages, apparently with the knowledge and support of ground air controllers, the DASC, and the TACC. So apparently we have dozens of officers happily murdering people and committing war crimes, and happily showing the reporter Schell what they were doing.

Hogwash.

_____________

He made up these lies 35 years ago, and keeps telling them. And no one in the press bothers to call him on it.

Questions for Mr. Schell

Give us the names of the pilots who committed murder and war crimes. If they did the crime they should be prosecuted or at least publicly condemned.

Give us the dates, days, locations, and times of those flights.

Give us the Unit name of the Squadrons who took you on these flights.

Give us the Unit name of the Squadrons that dropped the bombs.

Why did you not report and stop these horrible murders then?

Why not come forward with your charges now? No Statute of limitations on murder.

You no doubt have copies of those amazing leaflets that we supposedly dropped before and after we pulverized the villages "if you fire on us, we will destroy your village," and then a follow-up leaflet that said, "You did fire on us, and we did destroy your Village."

Or, alternatively, why don't you confess you lied about all this?

Bet these answers won't be forthcoming

__________________

Many people lie about Vietnam. It was a big deal to people of the age to serve there. Many vets and wannabes made up stories about service, stretching the truth about their exploits and/or war crimes and angst about those crimes.

And so did some journalists. Including our Mr. Schell.