Anniversary of battle that ended French rule in Vietnam

[Bo Zarts]

2. I have read both Jules Roy's and Bernard Falls' excellent histories of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

The miscalculations of the French were lethal. In fact, the French artillery commander .. Pirouth, so miscalculated and misstated his units' abilities to respond to Viet Minh artillery with withering counter-battery fire, that recognizing his failure he went into his tent and fired a bullet into his brain. The battle went downhill from there, for the French.

A decade later, the US made many of the same mistakes in its war in Vietnam. The lessons of history should have kept us out of that war .. a "street without joy," to use the words of Bernard Fall.