REFLECTIONS: Last Words

"All victory ends in the defeat of death. But does defeat end in the victory of death?" So mused the heroine's father in Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra.

A good part of the French Foreign Legion fighting against the Vietnamese in Indo-China is made up of former members of the Nazis' Afrika Korps. Last week at Hai duong, the French executed two of their German soldiers for desertion. Before death struck, each proclaimed his final faith in a defiant shout. "Vive la France!" cried one. "Heil Hitler!" cried the other.

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