The Real War: The Classic Reporting on the Vietnam War

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.

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.