General Giap meets overseas Vietnamese youth
15:55' 26/07/2004 (GMT+7)


General Vo Nguyen Giap and young overseas Vietnamese people.

VietNamNet – General Vo Nguyen Giap met with 86 young overseas Vietnamese people, who had returned home for the Vietnam Summer Camp 2004 at the Hung Vuong Temple - Phu Tho, on July 25.

Meeting the young people at his home, General Giap enquired about their lifestyles and study abroad. He also welcomed an initiative put forward by the Foreign Ministry and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee to run the camp, which will help young overseas Vietnamese understand the homeland.

General Giap reminded them to remember that even though they live and work in different countries, they are still Vietnamese. He told them to honour nations hard working tradition, to study well and to contribute to building Vietnam into a richer country.

Before saying goodbye to the General, the young people sang “Vietnam summer camp” for the General, and had their photo taken with him.

“I will remember this meeting forever. General Giap is a hero, but is like a grandfather,” said Trinh Phuong Mai, of French Vietnamese decent.

OH man I always wanted to meet General Vo Nguyen Giap. Lucky bastards, gets to attend the summer camp

I want to meet general Giap, so he could tell me all the war stories and stuffs.

then you must hurry ! he is old now...

vâng ạ, già lắm - 93 tuổi đời

Oh yeah! General Giap was the one that said, "Any forces that would impose their will on other nations will certainly face defeat. And all nations fighting for their legitimate interests and sovereignty will surely win". Thems are good words. Genious.

Darn it!

What is Giap's daily role in the current government of VN? Just curious.

Probably "Official Grand-father"? :genius:

He's just too old to occupy an official position, so he's probably enjoying the peaceful time in his country.

He could also be an unofficial adviser in military and diplomatic matters.

awesome.

Does anyone consider Giap the modern Ngo Quyen? Do you think he should be given the same status as Vietnamese heroes before him, and we should have stories of him passed down to each generation?

Yes..

I agree as well. I hope the Vietnamese maidens will sing songs about him and tell stories about him for ages to come.

Stories about him...yes.
But sing songs about him? Come on...

Sing songs about his bravery that is.

I can't see that happening.
He's a national hero, but in this modern world I don't think anyone is going to make a song about his bravery.
Probably if there is a movie made about him in Vietnam. But what are the chances of a patroitic movie of Vietnam being successful?

It would be sucessful if it was only shown in Vietnam.

As much as I love Vietnam. I somewhat doubt that south Vietnamese are ready to accept such a movie. This is a movie made on General Giap that liberated the south. Too many south Vietnamese soldiers died fighting to resist the north. Although it would be a good movie explaining how a united Vietnam is better then a divided one.

Aren't you Japanese or Korean?

........................read my past post Byron. I'm 100% Viet, but I was born in Australia. What are you implying?

I'm not implying anything. I thought were were Japanese or Korean because of your username.

He is a brilliant military tactician.He is fascinating. But not a hero. He scorned the lives of his soldiers. His tactic during dien bien phu was the chinese style assault:
the first waves were sacrified, they were composed of very young inexperienced soldiers, with no guns, only hand grenade. The goal was not to kill enemies but that the enemies used all theirs ammo on them in order to make them run out of ammo when the true waves of experienced soldiers came.That's why the loss in this war was so huge. Only a totalitarian movement can so much despise the lives of its own people.
Moreover , giap controlled the army with political officers which killed officers and soldiers when they didn't obey to crazy orders. To understand this, you should see the movie stalingrad by jean jacques annaud or play to call of duty videogame with the stalingrad battle , the soviet used the same instruments of terrors in their army.
last but not least, the tactic of guerilla of giap aimed civilian. When people refused communism, he used tortures , assasinations to control the populations. Thousands of people were assasinated.
Indochina war was a very dirty war.And also a civil war, the majority of the loss of the french army was composed of vietnamese people.(independence was given to annam, cochinchina during the war, 2/3 of the french forces was composed by a non communist vietnamese army).

The end of colonialism was good news but it was replaced by a totalitarian state.North vietnam hadn't be freed but again reduced to slavery.(500000 peasants died during the land reforms during the aftermath of war)
To my opinion victory of communism was the last crime or error of the french.
If they had negotiate the independence with the non communist movements before the wwII , things could have been very different. Because they were to slow to make reforms, because they made repression against moderate, democratic movement or didn't want to listen to their demands, it opened the way to extremes, totalitarian movements as communism.

The tactic at Dien Bien Phu was not a Chinese style assault. Yes he had advice from Chinese on using human wave attacks in the beginning of the war, but it brought him failure, until Dien Bien Phu were he decided to ignore Chinese advice and to use a slow style assault, and digging though mountains and underground to reach the French in a very slow manner and won.

Ho Chi Minh tried to talk with the U.S well before WW2 to give independance to Vietnam, and he didn't talk to the Communist yet, but they ignored him.

France needed Vietnam to rebuild their country after the great damage done to them in WW2 and the U.S being their major ally wouldn't help the Vietnaemse gain independance and U.S ships even provided air support to the French troops by trying to drop supplies for them.

OK Mr-Guess-What-I-Know-So-Much-Better-I-Imagine-I-Can-Tell-You-Everything-On-Everything-And-More !

Just need to show some references now and then? or you just talk out of your pocket? can you read what you wrote? can you yourself, believe in what you're writing? why do you go around telling c@ck and bull stories?

Ha ha ha, you should write your own books just for you!!! for nobody else will want to read them !!! Ha ha Ha ha !!!

OK, read this in the meanwhile :


An Analysis Of The French Defeat At Dien Bien Phu





The Official Dien Bien Phu Website, by French Historians
http://www.dienbienphu.org/english/

What are you doing? Did i offend you? I have nothing to prove. And i have much more important things than to brag in this forum.Moreover i don't want to teach you anything: if you don't like what i read just don't.

The fact is giap is not a saint, and indochina war wasn't the great romantic adventure of valiant knights that you seems to believe. I just see it as a tragedy for the vietnam. And i don't say that all commies were monster, even some political officers only wanted to fight for their country. But there were wrong .
You want some references?

I read that you are french or you are influenced by france.
i watched some french vet stories on the french tv (france5) in "Combattre pour l'indochine". And i read the magazine HISTORIA related to the indochina war.
"Viet Nam - Le dossier noir du communisme" from michel
tauriac is a good book to read.

So! Just as I said! You can write your own history books!

Anyway, now you will have these approved references and written matters online (approved by the Dien Bien Phu veterans).

I'm influenced by all cultures, but stay clear from all trashes, and thus, well away from French trash. When I read (ha ha, pocket digests always make me laugh, I'm so sorry!), when I read, I always double-check or triple-check all information, and meditate before jumping to any conclusion. I just don't want to be a real shame for any country.

You've offended no one, Mr. What you wrote was only too gross!

Giap wasn't all that brilliant if he could lose 20,000 men to win Dien Bien Phu while the French lost 6,000. What he has was determination and communist tenacity. He doesn'tt care how much blood they shed as long as they pull out a victory. It's one way to win a war, but it doesn't make him brilliant. The brilliant military leaders are those who have a smaller force, but through brilliant tactics they manage to conquer their much larger enemies with minimal lost i.e. Napoleon, Julius Ceaser.

I could sympathize with the regular soldiers of the Viet Minh and Viet Cong who fought because they believed they were freeing their country from a foreign conquerers (and sometimes against their will). But the leaderships were fully aware of the hell they were going to plunge their country into. Communists will distort history and make Ho and Giap look like heros because communist countries and all dictatorship seems to like to set up a cult of leaders. Back when I was in grade school, a kid defaced a painting of Ho by accident and he was severely beaten and kicked out of school by the authority. It doesn't seems like followers of Ho practice the kindliness and forgiveness that the stories said Ho practices. This is example of the hyprocrisy inherent in the "cult of leader" propaganda that they're trying to sell. It's brainwashing, and it's still going on.

Although I generally dislike Communist and Ho Chi Minh overall, I think Giap did best for the country, independence from the French.

A quote from the links I gave above :

French had much better technology and weapons. In war these days those who have the best weapons usually win. Giap was a military genius for taking simple farmers and peasants and turning them into a fighting force that didn't give up when the French had better odds at winning with their superior weaponry.

Dude Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world and look how easily the U.S took them down in Gulf War 1 with only around 50 U.S dead and most of those were from U.S friendly fire. Why? Because better weapons contributes a lot of modern warfare.

How do you think Europe with a small population manage to colonize most of the world? Including China with the largest population in the world. It's because they had the advantage in weaponry with guns back then.

In modern warfare it's technology that gives a huge advantage. So of course I would expect more Vietnamese casulaties given the fact that they had inferior weapons and a less number of weapons. But I'm surprised that they actually won Dien Bien Phu and destroyed that fortified French fortress which the French armed it to the teeth and concentrated most of their forces there to lure the Vietminh to fight them.

I'll agree with you that it was good to get rid of the French, but then he turned his guns onto South Vietnam afterwards . I can't see much of a different between Ho and Giap since they both had the same aims.

Don't forget that the Nationalist Party also joined the fights against the French and were latter wiped out by the Viet Minh.



I'll agree that superior weaponry will usually carry the day, but it wasn't like the Soviets and the emerging PRC didn't arm the Viet Minh. They were not like farmers carrying hoes against the French bayonet. Plus they knew the terrain, which the French did not.

Also, keep in mind that the French have a long ignominous history of defeat. Even Algerians rebels were able to defeat them so it wasn't like they were the best fighting force in the world.

Still, I'm glade they're out of country, but I'll agree with paul that they screw us over by leaving us with a decadent communist regime in control. I recall watching a video where I saw villagers in that period standing by the road and carrying signs that said, "NO to Colonialism and NO to Communism." That's my sentiment.

hey i saw a video of the south vietnam military parade and they look so powerful and so well equiet but yet they lost

Yeah...they were powerful and well equipped but so were the North Vietnamese. The people you see in the pajamas are Viet Cong and they were guerrilla fighters. Judging by their appearance they might not be much, but look at the guns they carry. Very modern and sometimes better than the equipment of South Vietnamese soldiers. North Vietnam had a staunch ally in the Soviet Union and China which didn't have to worry about public opinion back at home while South Vietnam's American allies were fair weather friends.

Most importantly, they were willing to pay any price in blood for victory. At the end of the war 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers died while only a fraction of that number of South Vietnamese soldiers died. South Vietnam held out for a couple of years after America abandoned it, and cut off all military aid. It had a powerful army, but not powerful enough to stand alone against the might of the Soviet and PRC backed North Vietnamese. I always thought that South Vietnam lost the political war long before it lost the military war.

why didnt they invade the north when they have a chance

If South Vietnam had carried the war (like ground forces and not just airplanes) into the North as the North carried the war into the South, I believe the outcome would be different. Just like in a game of chess the best defense was offense.

However, this is where we lost the political war. Our American ally refuse to allow an invasion for fear of bringing China and the Soviet directly into the conflict. They feared that Vietnam might be another Serbia, where a fight in a small country could erupt into World War III. South Vietnam was left to pursue a defensive stragety while the enemy infiltrated its territory via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Most of the destruction was on home turf and that's never good.

If we only have geography like South Korea where we are surrounded by water, a defensive strategy might have been more effective and there might be a South Vietnam still in existence today.

There were so much corruption in the South, repression was high, freedom of press and of speech was peanuts... you've got a gun? you've got also the power!

So, when they had a chance, those who could took the money and fled even before the war came to its end...

That's the sad story of the South.

It's probably more accurate in the North though? Or is that a lie?

You'd probably lived in the North?

I grew up in the South, so sorry I know only the South?

My family lived in the North and fled to the South as millions of Northern Vietnamese did. So the South wasn't perfect but it was definitely better. I think Doan Du had a similar story. So if you only lived in the South then your perception could be skewed. As human beings we have the tendency to think that the grass always look greener on the other side whether that reflects reality or not.

I was born in the North.

Mấy anh em trong diễn đàn tha hồ chửi rủa đất nước quá, đễ cho bọn ngoại bang lợi dụng vào vu khống và chửi luôn thể cho xướng miệng, thế mới là yêu nước ?

yêu nước kiểu như thế thì... đừng bao giờ thèm về nữa nhé...

Vietcong had not air support whatsoever and hardly any tanks. It was mostly infantry, of old farmers and little kids and adults as well.

The Vietcong were not well equipped they had to make their weapons like traps and stuff.

The NVA were the ones that were well equipped by the Soviets with tanks and airforce,(but seldom did they use their airforce that much).

But the Vietcong did most of the fighting up until 1969 when they were destroyed in the Tet Offensive.

As for the French not knowing the terrain(well they did colonize Vietnam for almost 100 years, and the average lifespan is like what? 70 years old? I'm sure there were French who born in Vietnam, and the Vietminh troops were like younger than 50 most of them. So Both Vietminh and French should have known the terrain since a lot of them were about the same age who lived in Vietnam all their lives, not to mention a lot of them were Vietnamese as well.)

Yes Vietnamese lived in the area longer, but that doesn't mean jack when the average life span is just 70 years old. I really doubt being Vietnamese would somehow make me know the terrain better than a French person who lived in the area at the same time as me.

So I was born in Canada and lived there, so being me Vietnamese should somehow give me the knowledge of the terrain of my ancestors much more than a French man who is 20 years old and lived in Vietnam since birth as well.

I wonder why you posted this???

The VC were destroyed not 100% but they weren't a fighting force anymore, the NVA took over the fighting for them after the Tet offensive. Yes they were there on 1975, but they weren't fighters.

As for the VC tanks, I said the VC were 99% infantry. Yes I know they had like 1 or 2 tanks, but they had like less than 10 tanks, probably less than 5 of them. What are you gonna do with few tanks, when the U.S has thousands of them that are better quality as well. The VC mostly relied on traps and guerrilla attacks and hiding in the Vietcong tunnels.

Ha ha ha the tanks were not aimed at the US forces !!! They were to guard the North borders !!!

A people's army is never completely destroyed. And the Army of South Vietnam Liberation Front was only dissolved back in the people after the victory.

Victory. They were trained to win the war at all costs and sacrifices. It's a pity they were not prepared in case of victory. After they've won... what else to do???

I'll admit the NVA were well equipped more than their government every acknowledged in public but the VC were mostly old farmers and peasants without any training.

Here's are pictures of VCs. They look like frustruted old people without any training that just wanted to liberate their country from foreign forces and unite it.

Just imagine you live in the jungle, have little to eat... you would look like him... I would too.

Dude they were old men, espicially the guy in the first picture. I commend them for having courage for actually fighting the well trained and young and well equipped American Army and South Vietnamese army with inferior weapons and their cleverness.

He must be 26 or 27 y o. He looks old. Anyway that's a very old age in a country at war, where people die young. All my uncles died before that age.

In SVN army, the military service lasted 7 years. So as to say, they'll have died before they could get back to civilian life !!!

The first guy does not look 27 to me. Remember Vietnamese are known to be older than they look compared to other races.

Ha ha you don't know the war, you don't know the permanent losses, the feelings when members of yours family slowly all just disappeared, never come back...

You should read at least the novel "The Sorrow of War"... War in Vietnam... It was worse than hell...