Before young Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) soldiers went into battle, they had to be fit enough to fight. Cholera, malaria, dysentery, and typhoid could be as lethal as flying bullets and artillery fire. And if disease did not kill instantly, it often incapacitated scores of able-bodied men for weeks, indeed months, sometimes spreading from one unit to another before moving on indiscriminately. The DRV’s soldier’s body was no more immune to tropical diseases than the colonial one. The problem was that the DRV’s medical services lacked quality medicines in sufficient quantities. In a special meeting of the military medical service held in May 1947, Vo Nguyen Giap had emphasized the importance of fighting cholera in all of its forms. In 1948, Ho Chi Minh had to remind military medical staff that a chronic lack of medicine and a failure to carefully preserve medicines in their possession meant that too many soldiers remained sick. For the period between 1945 and 1950, disease and sickness probably exacted a heavier toll on the Vietnamese soldier’s health than the French Union armed forces did. Many combat units, even regiments, often operated at 50% manpower because of debilitating and sometimes lethal diseases. The French Union army never had to confront this problem on this scale. Although local innovations helped combat sickness, modern communist bloc aid was essential to reducing the high levels of sickness in DRV combat units. Between 1952 and 1954, Sino-Soviet medical aid amounted to 110 tons and 46 trunks of medicines, consisting mainly of vaccines, antibiotics, and anti malaria pills, as well as medical instruments. Thanks to these medicines, the DRV supplied and required its main force troops to take anti-cholera pills for eight months in northern Vietnam and three months in less infected areas in central Vietnam. Also contributing to this decline were the military medical corps’ stepped-up propaganda drives among the soldiers, stressing the importance of good hygiene, clean drinking water, and regular bathing. Special preventive disease clinics appeared within the army ranks, while political cadres ensured that the rules were followed. Between 1950 and 1954, the overall number of the sick among the troops fell from an astounding high of 51.2% in 1950 to 31.2% in 1954, with cholera being the enemy no. 1. The level of cholera afflictions in the army dropped from 31% in 1951 to 27.9% in 1952. By the time of Dien Bien Phu, DRV divisions were judged to be on average 90% healthy. When viewed from the vantage point of the combatant’s health, there was more to winning on the battlefield than providing troops with big guns. See also EXPERIENCE OF WAR.