I remember vividly looking at a short, thin, and apparently weak, laborer in Vietnam's countryside and asking myself, "Are people like him the ones who defeated the greatest empire in the world and the powerful French army?"
Among those that could be credited with those victories, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap — who died on Oct. 4 — certainly has a place of honor. He was 102.
Despite anybody's opinion of the Vietnam War, nobody can deny that Giap's brilliant guerrilla tactics defeated both the French and the American invaders in a protracted war, at a cost of a million people, both soldiers and civilians.