What is the village about?

"The Village" is a short story by well-published author Kate Wilhelm. Wilhelm wrote the story in response to reports of the My Lai Massacre, in which hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians were tortured, raped, and killed by American soldiers.
The story switches back and forth between two narratives without transition, and then the two storylines blend together. The first narrative begins with a woman named Mildred Carey as she goes about her day, running errands in a small American town. The second narrative follows a group of American soldiers as they make their way towards an unnamed village for a "search-and-clear maneuver." We assume at first that they are somewhere in Vietnam.
The two stories come together when this group of soldiers reach their destination—the town where Mildred Carey lives. Helicopters swoop down, and soldiers begin shooting people and searching for weapons. Innocent men, women, and children, including Mildred, who had been going about their normal everyday lives, are ambushed and killed by these soldiers, with no explanation.
The events that take place in "The Village" mirror what happened in the My Lai Massacre, where American soldiers came upon the Vietnamese village of Son My in search of Viet Cong, and finding none, still began destroying the village and killing the civilians who lived there. Wilhelm brings the horrors of war into a small American town, turning the tables so that her readers, however supportive or unsupportive they may have been of the Vietnam War, would have no choice but to empathize with the innocent people murdered in this violent attack.