LEGENDARY VIETNAM GEN. VO NGUYEN GIAP DIES AT 102 - Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the brilliant and ruthless commander who led the outgunned Vietnamese to victory first over the French and then the Americans, died Friday. The last of the country's old-guard revolutionaries was 102. A national hero, Giap enjoyed a legacy second only to that of his mentor, founding president and independence leader Ho Chi Minh. Giap died in a military hospital in the capital of Hanoi, where he had spent nearly four years because of illnesses, according to a government official and a person close to him. Both spoke on condition of anonymity before the death was announced in state-controlled media. Known as the "Red Napoleon," Giap commanded guerrillas who wore sandals made of car tires and lugged artillery piece by piece over mountains to encircle and crush the French army at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The unlikely victory — still studied at military schools — led to Vietnam's independence and hastened the collapse of colonialism across Indochina and beyond. Giap then defeated the U.S.-backed South Vietnam government in April 1975, reuniting a country that had been split into communist and noncommunist states. He regularly accepted heavy combat losses to achieve his goals.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/legendary-vietnam-gen-vo-nguyen-giap-dies