Here is a sample of the fabrication and out-of-context quotations that are attributed to Gen. Giap in US newspapers this morning: "But “to Giap,” he said, “a man’s life was nothing.”" Actually, judging by the conduct of the war by the US and the Vietnamese, the only conclusion that one draws is that it was the Americans who operated on the dictum that a man's life was nothing. Gen. Giap operated on the opposite principle that a man's life is everything.