French Foreign Legion

they have a pretty informative website.

You really want to kill people, don't you?

I read this the other day: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/...e/01legion.php

Marines not work out?

They haze (brutalize?) the crap out of you. Many of your colleagues will have, ahem, checkered, pasts. Imagine Marine basic, with all your orders coming at you in French, and no lawyers to protect you (as in the US military). I don't think it would be fun, in the way I don't think prison or gulag would be fun. From what I understand, English-speakers (Americans, Brits, Canadians, South Africans, Aussies, etc) are not particularly well liked.

That isn't true at all anymore.

I shared a couple of drinks with an FFL guy in a Parisian dive bar a few years back. He was a Romanian who had joined just to get out of his own country and ended up being assigned to patrol the rebel border in the Cote d'ivore.

He shared some really funny/absurdist stories about his experiences there but did NOT seem like a very happy guy. I think that he saw some awful things there.

He worked in africa my friend. Be there long enough and you'll see the very worst.

I've been in the jungle as a tourist and my guide was ex-military and had done a jungle warfare course. Forget any notions you have about it being an enjoyable experience. They call the jungle the green hell. It's beautiful, but it's brutal, unless the thought of eating termites appeals to you. There is practically no good food or water for a human in the jungle. It suppose that it would make a man of you if you could hack it.

Probably blown out of proportion. They get the crappiest gear/hand me downs of the French military, and are stationed in the worse cesspools of the world, on the edge of civilization. In the last several decades, they've rarely engaged a "regular" fighting force (instead rebels, insurgents, etc). That's not good for anyone's mental health.

In the last few decades, how many armed forces have had prolonged conflicts with anything that wasn't just rebels and insurgents?

the pay isn't bad, and you can get french citizenship and an EU passport out of it. if I wasn't busy at your age, I might have done it myself.

what did you want out of the military? to see a little of the world? get tough? do some wild shit? that's what you will get out of the FFL. will you have fun, probrably not. will you meet some really crazy guys, fuck some skanky whores and end up a very differnt person from your high school friends in 5 years. damn right.

I've a read a couple books about it writen by former legionnaires, both of whom strongly recommended that you do not join. Apparently, their training process is particularly brutal, meant to completely break you down physically and psychologically so that they can remould you as a soldier. There's a reason they have such a fearsome reputation. Incidentally, I don't think they accept fugutives and criminals anymore, although you still get French citizenship after an honourable discharge. The real question, though, is would you look good in a kepi?

Speaking from experience or your ass?