Voices from the Villages

TEN VIETNAMESE by Susan Sheehan. 204 pages. Knopf. $4.95.

"When I see an American soldier I feel very sorry for my people. We are so small and dark and underfed compared to Americans. Life must be very good and the work must be easy where they come from. I wonder why they want to come to this poor place?"

--A Peasant Woman

"People don't know which side to take to feel safe. There are so many families with relatives on both sides.

I've seen government hamlet chiefs murdered by Viet Cong guerrillas led by their own nephews. It breaks your heart to see Vietnamese families killing each other like that."

--A Refugee

"I don't think the Viet Cong will kill me. I'm not worth it. But if they do--well, if I die today, I won't have to die tomorrow."

--A Viet Cong Defector

These words are spoken by three representatives of Viet Nam's peasant millions who have lived with war in their homeland for more than 20 years. Their stories were collected in 1965 and 1966 in a series of interviews by Susan Sheehan, a New Yorker writer and the wife of Neil Sheehan, who was a New York Times correspondent in Saigon. In addition to this Vietnamese trio, seven other people are presented in the book: a landlord, a Montagnard, an orphan, a Buddhist monk, a Viet Cong, a South Vietnamese soldier, a politician.

Where Is Saigon? For all the difference between these types, there are some constants: the Vietnamese seem to love their villages with an extraordinary passion. Again and again, they speak of the time when the trouble will end and they can go back to the elysium of such hamlets as Gia Hoi or Hoai Chau. So narrow and parochial is their vision that most do not know the name of their province chief or the mayor of the adjoining city. At their hesitant best, the peasants can identify only Ho Chi Minn and the late Ngo Dinh Diem. Few know why the French came and where or why they have gone. Some do not even know that Viet Nam has been divided into a North and South; others have heard of Saigon but have no idea where it is.

They may be ignorant but far from unintelligent. They have worked hard since the day they were born and have met death at every step of the way. They are burdened by debt, unlucky in their attempts to raise chickens or hogs, which are stolen by the government troops or taken as "taxes" by the Viet Cong if they do not sicken and die first.

Solutions. The "politician" (his real name is not given) was trained to be a pediatrician, studied in Hanoi and

France, and is the only one of the author's subjects who believes that solutions are possible. He feels that "the United States should be in overt control here. Americans shouldn't worry about world opinion. The peasants would be glad to have Americans running their districts." At the same time, he opposes negotiations with North Viet Nam. "We have to go on with the war and win it . . . If we accept peace under Communist rule, many thousands of people in South Viet Nam will be sentenced to death by Communist people's tribunals, as they were in North Viet Nam when the Communists took over."

No conflict has been so thoroughly reported as the Viet Nam war; not only the battles but the life and fate of the villages have been described many times. Author Sheehan adds nothing new, but her pen portraits are affecting and authentic.

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