A Christmas Tale from History
Sometimes, history writes its own tales. This text by Antoine speaks of courage, forgetting, loyalty, and reunion. Two soldiers, two parallel lives, a belated encounter that illuminates their shared past. This foreword invites the reader into a story where reality surpasses fiction and where brotherhood survives everything: wars, years, and silence.
Louis Perez y Cid
Louis Perez y Cid
Tale or Miracle?
By Antoine Marquet
Miracles still exist, even in the Colonial Army.
A few days ago, I was browsing Facebook when the weathered face of a veteran, covered in medals, appeared on my screen. The caption read: "The last survivor of Dien Bien Phu." I smiled and replied: No. He's not the last one.
I know another. A 91-year-old man, straight as an oak, his eyes twinkling: Raymond Lindemann, my friend of forty years.
Raymond, parachuted into Dien Bien Phu with his battalion, held out until the camp fell, before the long night of captivity with the Viet Minh.
And, at the same time, unknowingly, another soldier was following in his footsteps: Guy Sinet, a colonial paratrooper from the 3rd Company of the 1st BCP (Parachute Chasseur Battalion).
The jump scheduled for May 3-4, 1954, was canceled due to bad weather. The following night, finally, just 300 meters above the ground, he jumped from DC-3 No. 699.
On May 8, the valley collapsed. Sinet was captured. He would not be released until August 29.
Later, recalled to Algeria, he joined the 3rd Company of the Bigeard Battalion, just like Raymond. Two parallel lives, two trajectories of iron and fire, so close that one might have thought they would eventually intersect. And yet… After the war, they both joined EDF (Électricité de France). They both lived twenty kilometers apart, one in Montélimar, the other in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, never knowing that their double existed, right there, on the same map of France.
And all that time, neither of them knew that they had faced the same jungles, shared the same nights of turmoil and chaos, suffered in the same units.
And yet, their return from Indochina was anything but a triumph. When they disembarked in Marseille, the soldiers returning from the nightmare were greeted by the insults of communist activists from the CGT (General Confederation of Labour), hostile to this distant war. And the height of indecency struck like a rifle butt to the face:
The French Quartermaster Corps refused to release the loan to these men, under the absurd pretext that they had been "fed for free by the Viet Minh" during their captivity.
This was how the country they had served, for which they had shed their blood, received them.
One can easily imagine the silent wound they carried.
Then, decades later, a general, president of the Montélimar branch of the Legion of Honor, discovered in the Official Journal Guy Sinet's nomination in the November 11th honors list. He knew Raymond and his six war medals. He connected their two destinies and understood: these brothers in arms had to meet.
The meeting took place recently, at Raymond's home.
When Sinet crossed the threshold, the two men looked at each other as one recognizes a brother lost not by blood, but by fire.
Dates echo each other, memories intertwine, and suddenly, in the silence between their sentences, one can almost hear the flapping of parachutes above the valley floor, the rumble of mortars, and that indomitable brotherhood born when death is defied together—even without knowing each other.
Next December 20th, Raymond will have the honor of presenting Guy Sinet, a recipient of the Military Medal, with the insignia of the Legion of Honor.
On that day, these two destinies, too long parallel, will finally converge in the light.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when Charles de Foucauld, lost among hostile tribes, saw a column of colonial relief troops appear, he fell to his knees, crying out to the heavens:
"And in the name of God, long live the Colonial Army!"
They say it's a small world.
Personally, I believe more in miracles, or perhaps… in Christmas tales written by the hand of History.
Miracles still exist, even in the Colonial Army.
A few days ago, I was browsing Facebook when the weathered face of a veteran, covered in medals, appeared on my screen. The caption read: "The last survivor of Dien Bien Phu." I smiled and replied: No. He's not the last one.
I know another. A 91-year-old man, straight as an oak, his eyes twinkling: Raymond Lindemann, my friend of forty years.
Raymond, parachuted into Dien Bien Phu with his battalion, held out until the camp fell, before the long night of captivity with the Viet Minh.
And, at the same time, unknowingly, another soldier was following in his footsteps: Guy Sinet, a colonial paratrooper from the 3rd Company of the 1st BCP (Parachute Chasseur Battalion).
The jump scheduled for May 3-4, 1954, was canceled due to bad weather. The following night, finally, just 300 meters above the ground, he jumped from DC-3 No. 699.
On May 8, the valley collapsed. Sinet was captured. He would not be released until August 29.
Later, recalled to Algeria, he joined the 3rd Company of the Bigeard Battalion, just like Raymond. Two parallel lives, two trajectories of iron and fire, so close that one might have thought they would eventually intersect. And yet… After the war, they both joined EDF (Électricité de France). They both lived twenty kilometers apart, one in Montélimar, the other in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, never knowing that their double existed, right there, on the same map of France.
And all that time, neither of them knew that they had faced the same jungles, shared the same nights of turmoil and chaos, suffered in the same units.
And yet, their return from Indochina was anything but a triumph. When they disembarked in Marseille, the soldiers returning from the nightmare were greeted by the insults of communist activists from the CGT (General Confederation of Labour), hostile to this distant war. And the height of indecency struck like a rifle butt to the face:
The French Quartermaster Corps refused to release the loan to these men, under the absurd pretext that they had been "fed for free by the Viet Minh" during their captivity.
This was how the country they had served, for which they had shed their blood, received them.
One can easily imagine the silent wound they carried.
Then, decades later, a general, president of the Montélimar branch of the Legion of Honor, discovered in the Official Journal Guy Sinet's nomination in the November 11th honors list. He knew Raymond and his six war medals. He connected their two destinies and understood: these brothers in arms had to meet.
The meeting took place recently, at Raymond's home.
When Sinet crossed the threshold, the two men looked at each other as one recognizes a brother lost not by blood, but by fire.
Dates echo each other, memories intertwine, and suddenly, in the silence between their sentences, one can almost hear the flapping of parachutes above the valley floor, the rumble of mortars, and that indomitable brotherhood born when death is defied together—even without knowing each other.
Next December 20th, Raymond will have the honor of presenting Guy Sinet, a recipient of the Military Medal, with the insignia of the Legion of Honor.
On that day, these two destinies, too long parallel, will finally converge in the light.
At the beginning of the 20th century, when Charles de Foucauld, lost among hostile tribes, saw a column of colonial relief troops appear, he fell to his knees, crying out to the heavens:
"And in the name of God, long live the Colonial Army!"
They say it's a small world.
Personally, I believe more in miracles, or perhaps… in Christmas tales written by the hand of History.