Legendary hero of Vietnam dies at 102

Vietnam’s legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap, whose guerrilla tactics defeated the French and American armies, died Friday at the age of 102, prompting an outpouring of tributes for the independence hero.
“I can confirm that General Giap died at 6:08 pm (1108 GMT) today,” a government source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A military source confirmed the time of Giap’s death at Hanoi’s 108 military hospital, where he had been living for the last three years. He died surrounded by his family.
State-run online newspaper VNExpress said his body has been moved from the special care zone to the morgue at the hospital with a guard of honour to pay respect.
“Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap has passed away – brilliant military strategist who once told me that we were an ‘honorable enemy’,” former US Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a former navy pilot who was shot down and famously held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, tweeted.
Giap, second only to late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh as modern Vietnam’s most revered figure, was the founding father of the Vietnam People’s Army, whose guerrilla tactics inspired anti-colonial fighters worldwide.
“He’s a mythic, heroic figure for Vietnam,” said Carl Thayer, an Australia-based scholar of the country.
Vietnamese Internet users immediately began paying tribute to the general, who remained hugely popular in Vietnam despite being relegated to the political sidelines after the war.