The Village

Very unusual Vietnam war story, having read many books about this conflict I have never before encountered a situation like this where a small squad of marines lived amongst villagers and fought alongside the indigenous fighters. Between them, they became a local elite, very choosy about whom else could join them. Great story, very enjoyable.

great service and great book for those interested in the Vietnam (US) war John Paul Vann would be proud and upset at the same time

not what I expected, thought it was about the tv series. My 16 year old grandson is enjoying reading it though

This book illustrates what was effective during Vietnam war.

The book provides an historical review with specific individual accounts of Marines "embedded" with the population. As most from that era would recognize, the Marines had "jurisdiction" of the northern provinces of Vietnam, commonly known as I Corps. Although, 5th SFG worked the northern areas of Vietnam (MACV-North, their missions were focused on border operations (Brightlight, etc) of Laos and Vietnam. The book is an excellent read, especially as the focus of COIN today was reflected in the comments in this months (Feb/2012) Foreign Affairs magazine (as where I initially read Mr. West's comment on COIN.Make no doubt the invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003 placed Afghanistan and what strategy at that time prevailed deeply in second place. As a direct hire/contractor for USAID standing up the 1st PRT in Gardez, Paktia, I witnessed military minimized due to the demands of Iraq. The only financial resource at that time for "hearts and minds" was the CERP (commander's emergency response program; USAID's only implementation partner (USAID is not a direct funding agency) was IOM (International Organization of Migration)..hardly an NGO with experience in "post war" infrastructure development. The last time a had experience IOM was in Haiti (Operation Uphold Democracy) with their mission moving people around from one IDP camp to another.Although, I spent very little time at the Embassy, there were instances when I sat in on meetings (toward the end of my tour) with USAID's implementing partners in education, health care, infrastructure development (Louis Berger..the singular infrastructure development USAID partner in Afghanistan..schools, clinics..and the Kandahar-Kabul Road thru Ghazni). Because the Embassy folks and USAID managers would never venture from the Embassy, the inflated "success" of the implementation partners (NGO's-IO's) became a show. In one case, the presenters did not know there was a field rep for USAID who had traveled to Ghazni, Khost, Logar and Paktia on a daily basis (PRT commander/5th SFG/LTC was a real road warrior). Their assertions of projects was in some cases simply false.Unfortunately, had some of the tenants of Mr. West's summaries in The Village combined with what we know from "all the talk" of COIN been implemented in early 2003, no doubt Afghanistan would be in much better strategic position than today...in short, we wasted perhaps seven (7) years..bleeding us financially and the tragic lost of alot of fine Soldiers, Marines, Air Force and Navy personnel.Lessons learned from The Village and from the Ten Thousand Day War-Vietnam seemed to of been lost within the Administration of that time..and for Afghanistan, what momentum won was quickly lost.Haiti/Bosnia/Croatia/Sudan/Afghanistan/Iraq/Sudan/Uganda/2010RH