Colonel Ung Rang, who is the former principal of Engineer Officer Academy, said proudly, he was so lucky to meet Legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap. At that time, he went past the General’s house, intended to drop in to ask for a book written by the General Giap about the Vietnamese war. He was invited to go inside and take a picture with the Legendary General. The picture was so emotional and sacred that he has kept it for himself.  Colonel Ung Rang (L) was in the photo with General Vo Nguyen Giap in 2002 To Colonel Ung Rang, Dien Bien Phu (DBP) victory will never fade in his mind. The victory was a glorious milestone in the national history, contributed to the common triumph after 9 years of anti-French resistance war. The person who was firstly credited in this victory was General Vo Nguyen Giap assigned to be the commander of the campaign. Colonel Ung Rang said, DBP was a wide basin on northern mountains, had convenient location, thus was chosen to be a mobile strategic base gathering a large number of enemy’s soldiers. In winter of 1953, the Central Party and uncle Ho decided to launch the campaign DBP with the determination to destroy all enemies here and liberate the Northwest. Our force consisted of 4 infantry regiments, 1 artillery regiment including over half a million soldiers and thousands of tons of weapons, were prepared for the battle. Initially, our strategy was “quick attack, quickly destroy”. On January 1st 1954, infantry force was ready and waiting for the order to open fire. As the plan, the attacking order would be announced on January 26th 1954. But on January 25th, an important meeting chaired by Party Committee Secretary Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap at the Campaign Headquarters in Muong Phang decided to change the strategy into “steady attack, steadily advance”. The offensive was postponed while all forces were preparing for the new battle. Thereafter, General Vo Nguyen Giap said on newspapers, that was a critical decision contributing to the campaign’s victory, and was also a difficult decision for Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap to make.Colonel Ung Rang said, he knew Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap through newspapers, documents at that time, especially military tactics, frugal lifestyle, sentiments to everybody of Gen. Giap. The legendary General explain the reason of his changed strategy, most of our battlefields were located in exposed and vulnerable places as attacking. The distance for cannon pulling was really long and dangerous, thus it was difficult to arrive on time and resupply ammunition. At that time, Gen. Giap remembered teachings of uncle Ho before his death as well as a sentence in Resolution in 1953: “Our battleground is narrow, our people are limited, so we have to win and are not allowed to lose”. In fact, our force was not really mature and sufficient for a great battle. Thanks to the change of strategy, General Vo Nguyen Giap fulfilled honorably the responsibility assigned by uncle Ho.These days, Colonel Ung Rang are seeing off melancholically General Vo Nguyen Giap entering the eternity. As the “Eldest Brother” of the Vietnamese People’s Army, the General contributed great efforts to the national liberation, peace and development.Reported by T.Thao – Translated by Ngoc Huynh