Điện Biên Phủ, Legio Patria Nostra
Everyone knows the History of the French defeat in this place. Therefore, it would be pointless to recount this event. But I need to say that there is a small history that did not occur in Điện Biên Phủ that directly concerns several people.
It is more or less like this...
In mid-1940, when he was young, a Brazilian boy dreamed of joining the Foreign Legion. He made plans, sought information, and began to save some money. At the time he lived in a pension in São Paulo and worked in a bar. But then his life changed drastically. As a result of family and personal relationships, he started working as an elevator operator at the São Paulo City Hall.
A few months later, due to his cheerful personality and his intelligence, he started to work as an administrative assistant at the City Hall. Earning a good salary, he began to dress elegantly in fashionable suits. Despite this, he hadn't entirely abandoned the original idea of joining the Foreign Legion, because he believed it would be an excellent way to travel the world.
But then, around 1948 or 1949, he started being recruited by a co-worker who was a member of the Communist Party. In a short time he began to participate in meetings and to read the books that circulated in the underground of Brazilian society. Being a member of the Communist Party at that time in São Paulo had an additional advantage: he entered without paying the cinemas where there were employees affiliated to the party. This little damage done to cinema owners by communist employees was more or less tolerated then, because business in this sector was good and profitable.
When he finally admitted to himself that he was a Communist, the idea of joining the French Legion was completely abandoned. That military corporation came to be seen by him as the expression of French colonialist imperialism that deserved to be defeated. And indeed it was crushed at Điện Biên Phủ a few years later by the Vietnamese commanded by General Giap.
The History of that battle would probably not have been different if that Brazilian had been there as a soldier of the Foreign Legion. The path he took after being converted to communism set off another series of historical events that are important for some people.
That Brazilian communist got married in 1954 and had 2 daughters (1956 and 1958). In 1964. He had one last child and one last child in 1971. And another child with a mistress in 1973. None of these people would have been born if he had joined the French Legion and been killed or captured in Điện Biên Phủ.
Well... now I must say something important at least for me. That man was my father.