Marines in Afghanistan Take ‘The Village’ to Heart

Marines in Afghanistan Take ‘The Village’ to Heart – Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times.

In political terms, any rhetoric linking the Afghan conflict and the Vietnam War is usually meant to be poisonous – like the charge that Afghanistan has become President Obama’s Vietnam. But for the Marines in this former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, a book about the war in Vietnam has become a guide for how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign on a small scale. Though the overall U.S. effort in Southeast Asia ultimately failed, the Marines believe that lessons learned there could help in Afghanistan.

“The Village,” by Bing West, first published in 1972, is the story of 15 Marines who spend two years in the remote hamlet of Binh Nghia, protecting villagers and joining with local security forces in trying to thwart a violent insurgency. Seven of the 15 were killed in action. Although the geopolitical ramifications may be widely different, the missions given those long-ago Marines and the Marines assigned here are roughly similar: Live amid the populace, partner with local forces and together drive a wedge between the populace and the enemy.

Marine Gen. James Mattis, who led Marines into Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 and now heads the U.S. Joint Forces Command, says “The Village” is a must-read for troops “to understand the role of the small unit in the sort of war we’re fighting in Afghanistan.” …

More at The Los Angeles Times.

The Village – Bing West. “This is the way Vietnam should have been fought – by tough volunteers who lived alongside the Vietnamese…. It will take the sternest ideologue to remain unmoved by West’s perceptive and human treatment of the men who fought it.”