The Centurions

by Jean Lartéguy

For example, every year, in every Vietminh division, at the end of the rainy season a recollection is held.” “What’s that?” Pinières asked. “It’s a favourite term of the Jesuits. Nothing resembles the Vietminh world as closely as the Jesuits. I know, I was brought up by them. A recollection means a retreat, communal withdrawal, the examination of one’s conscience over the period of a year.” “Go on.” “With the Viets it lasts a fortnight and in some units up to ten per cent of the personnel are sometimes shot because they no longer conform to the model laid down. In this process the guilty are their own public prosecutors and demand their punishment themselves.” “Nevertheless,” said Glatigny, “in spite of our strokes of audacity and strokes of luck, in spite of our fits of laziness and energy, there was always Vietminh organization, Vietminh pertinacity: an ant-heap for ever active and in the process of reconstruction.”

The parallels between what they find scary about communism as practiced and religion as I see it practiced are undeniable. Also undeniable is the dehumanization of the Vietnamese people and Asian people generally, at least if they’re communists.