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| Europe |
| Fabled Foreign Legion fading with time |
| 2006-11-01 |
| AUBAGNE, France - The Foreign Legion isn't what it used to be. Murderers on the run are no longer welcome, and unhappy recruits have a year to back out without being branded deserters. These days a bigger issue faces the 175-year-old force that made its name fighting France's overseas battles in jungle and desert. Its key role — to be a crack professional force available for rapid, no-questions-asked deployment in far-flung conflicts — has all but evaporated. In campaigns from Algeria to Vietnam, Madagascar to Mexico, Legionnaires made up the bulk of the combat forces and suffered most of the casualties. Even in Bosnia a decade ago, serving as U.N. peacekeepers for the first time, they made up a significant portion of the French troops there. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #5 I knew a gut ( reealtive of my ex) who was a major or lieutenant_colonel in the Foreign Legion. He told me about recruitment rules: "no murderers, no rapers and you will deeply regret it if you lie about your past". Now this guy had nothing in common with your average French officer. An interestin point is that he wasn't interested on becoming general (despite having been earmarked as general material) because that would mean being forced to leave the Legion so his ambition was to end as a colonel of one of Legion's regiments. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-11-01 16:48 |
| #4 And there is at least an another quite good IIUC force, the (formerly) colonial marines, and the mountain troops are good too. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-01 15:13 |
| #3 It's officer cadre is all French. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-11-01 14:51 |
| #2 I always thought it was funny that one of the best military units in the French Military is comprised of Foreigners. Yeah there are French in the Foreign legion but you all get my point. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2006-11-01 12:54 |
| #1 The Legion is needed now more than ever. They should arm up and be a rapid deployment group to banilues from Marseilles to Paree. And, since they have taken in Muzzies, it would be interesting to see what they'd do when called upon to directly attack the Muzzie "youth Brigades." |
| Posted by: SpecOp35 2006-11-01 10:55 |