Giap Gone

Called by some The Red Napoleon and ranked by many with such masters of war as Rommel and MacArthur, Vietnam’s Vo Nguyen Giap has died.  Few are alive now who shared in his defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954,  which not only catapulted the French army out of South East Asia but set the entire edifice of western colonialism tumbling down.  Something like half the current population was not alive when the American’s pulled their last helicopters off the roofs in April of 1975.  But young and old lined the roads to witness his last parade.

…the extent of the  public mourning was unscripted, as hundreds of thousands lined up over four days outside Giap’s house to pay their respects in an outpouring of grief.