The French Foreign Legion has been both a source of comfort and a pain in the ass since I was a small child.
The French Foreign Legion is also a part of my family lore.
In Ireland my great grandfather got charged with stealing a sheep to feed his family with, a hanging offense. He went on the lam, hopped on a fishing boat and onto a French fishing boat and landed in France.
What does a starving teenager do in France back then? They lie about their age and join the Legion. Somehow he managed to survive Indochina and Algeria and when he returned to France for his discharge he promptly stowed away on a ship headed to the States where he prospered selling whale oil, coal and later home heating oil.
There was actually a picture of him in uniform, an old tintype my mother told me about but she said it was destroyed just before WW2 by a plumbing rupture that took out a lot of family records. This led a minor family spat down the road.
A big part of the Legion in my life is because they have popped into it from time to time over the years and been helpful simply by being there.
As a small child I discovered the Legion thanks to a TV series called 'Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion'. Buster Crabbe played Captain Gallant so I am dating myself here.
It was kind of a rip-off of Rin-Tin-Tin. It was about a boy, Cuffy, being raised by a legionnaire in a Legion post in Africa. Like a lot of small boys I wanted to be raised around real men and as it worked out I actually was. The GI Joes from WW2 raised me when I look back on it.
Growing up I read any number of books on the Legion and as I grew I understood things better. At about 15 or 16 I realized that the Legion was the ultimate fallback, a true Plan B so to speak.
I was always in excellent health and good physical condition. I'm reasonably intelligent and know how to live with others in close quarters. The latter I thank the Scouts and the WW2 guys for. I was fairly certain I could get in if push came to shove. It would be a place to hide if the need ever arose.
It' probably a good time now to clear up a few things about the Legion. Originally it was formed as a way of getting rid of the unemployed expats and fringe/criminal element in Paris it quickly earned a reputation of being a bunch of neer-do-wells and criminals. That pretty much was over by the 60s. Ducking into the Legion to because you are on the lam for a serious crime is tantamount to turning yourself in to Interpol because today all enlistees are given extensive background checks.
The Legion sometimes overlooks lesser crimes, say joyriding or a scuffle where nobody was seriously injured but the old Beau Geste take anyone on the lam old days are long over with.
Candidates for the Legion are also run through a series of test, both physical and mental, too. Historically they only accept about one in eight applicants, people are generally rejected for poor health, illiteracy, drug use, a criminal history and any number of other things.
For those that put their hand over their mouth, point at you and say, "You'll lose your citizenhip if you join the Foreign Legion!" guess again.
For one thing you can enlist under an assumed name. The Legion is very tight lipped about this. For another you never take an oath to serve France. You take the oath to serve the Legion. There is a big difference. Also the Legion will never force you to take up arms against your native country.
Actually as a younger man knowing this pretty much kept me out of trouble. My code of a sort was never commit a crime serious enough to keep me out of the Legion. Just go to Aubagne and enlist, instead. It'll save everyone, especially me a whole lot of trouble.
I always kept the Legion in the back of my mind until the day I turned 40. At 40 knew I could no longer enlist. If push came to shove it was a viable Plan B. Throughout my teens and early 20s I kept my eyes and ears open and read several books on the Legion. There was a lot of Legion history and little current information but managed to stay somewhat informed.
I also knew that to enlist I had to get to mainland France. Back in the day I could probably stow away on a ship leaving Boston Harbor and get at least to Europe and scraggle my way from there. Later I maintained an emergency fund, enough for a ticket and I maintained my passport. Somewhere along the line I managed to finagle another (bogus) one but in the computerized age that's no longer as easy as it used to be. It's probably close to impossible.
It sure would not have been a piece of cake, it would be a hard row to hoe but it would mean three hots and a cot and medical care.
When I got into the army later on I ran into a trio of legionnaires when I went on a TDY assignment. Two were really squared away but I think there was something a bit off in the head of the third. They said the Legion was OK, but it was a damned hard living which I knew ahead of time.
Later Stateside we had a Legion captain assigned to us for a while as an observer. He was actually a pretty good officer, a St. Cyr graduate and at first he was dubious of me because of the easygoing relationship I had with my battery commander. It's not that way in the legion. It's a caste system.
I learned a lot from him and he aid that it had taken him a while to understand that good American officers have a more trusting relationship with good NCOs. I guess he was probably a micro manager of some kind. Maybe they all are.
He must have liked me because he gave me a year's subscription to Kepi Blanc, the Legion's magazine. It, of course is in French but I could figure a lot of it out. We also traded jump wings and I still have them in a footlocker.
The footlocker also contains a kepi blanc and a Legion beret, both of which were gifted to me by someone that picked then up in their travels. I have never worn the beret and only tried on the kepi. (It actually fits) The footlocker also contains a beautifully bound book I will mention later.
It was also a good feeling that I had somewhat of an 'in' of sorts at the time with the Legion.
After I was discharged and moved into the tipi in the Rockies I was looking for my next adventure and wrote the Legion along with most African governments. I was looking to become a game warden in Africa. I've posted this here. Go back a few posts. They in effect saved my life from being murdered in Africa.
I used my family's address to receive these letters and they arrived. My terrified mother saw the Legion return address from the Legion at Aubagne and when I came home for the holidays the first words out of her mouth were a panic stricken "You're not joining the Foreign Legion!"
"I'm not joining the Foreign Legion!" I shot back.
This conversation repeated itself countless times during my visit home. It was like listening to a broken record.
In addition to this, the letter had been left on top of the stack of replies I had gotten from Africa regarding game warden jobs. Mom had probably showed it to someone and in a small New England town that was just too juicy for the numerous gossips to leave alone.
The rumor I was joining the Legion went all over town. In the ten days or so of my visit I had over a dozen people my mother knew ask me when I was leaving to join the Legion. trying to quash that rumor was like fighting bees.
She was terrified of that letter even after I had let her read it and it made my whole trip home rather annoying. My father put an end of the incessent nagging by telling my mother that BOTH of us were going to join the Legion if she didn't get off my back. It didn't totally eliminate the nagging but it minimized it to a reasonably tolorable level.
Dad was funny when he said that to my mother because he turned to me and asked, "Hey, do you still go to Algeria for training?"
Before I answered my mother demanded to know why my father knew how to join the Legion. He told her that his mother told him in case he had to skip out on a nagging wife. I played holy hell keeping a straight face. Dad could be downright sarcastic at times.
Mom turned red and smoke came out her ears. Dad gave me a self-satisfied smile. It was the look of a smirking repairman telling a housewife with a broken washing machine that it would work better if she plugged it in.
At that point the last thing wanted to do was join the Legion. On the other had, it would get me away from the incessant nagging...
My mother tried. She really did. She did the best she could but worried incessantly about nothing. Fortunately she married my father who ALWAYS knew what to do.
I have written a piece on that particular visit back home. I have not posted it here but I may sometime. It's a long read and a twisted tale of woe. The last night I was there my father in a somewhat rare sick sense of humor declared a family gathering to watch a movie together on TV.
The movie wound up being 'Beau Geste' with Gary Cooper. My mother was Gary Cooper fan but I just knew Dad had chosen that particular movie to make mischief. Dad's comments during the movie were priceless.
After the visit I returned to the tipi and several months later rolled it up for the last time. It had been a good adventure. I was still enrolled in the local community college and hung around the west side of Colorado Springs for several months.
When school broke up I asked myself, What is it going to be? Plan B or the Legion? It was a no brainer. I had a wad of cash saved up so I embarked on Plan B and hitchhiked to Alaska. Remember, the Legion was a last ditch option. I had no reason to think otherwise. Off to Alaska!
Alaska proved to be good to me and I had no reason to want to join the Legion other than a few times when I was commercial fishing. There were a few times during storms I briefly wished I HAD joined the Legion but I got over it quickly when the storms blew themselves out.
It was during this time I came home to visit and it was the last time I saw my father. I had been away a while and when he met me at the airport he said, "Well, I see you haven't joined the Foreign Legion yet." We both laughed.
Alaska was good to me and from time to time I would duck into the Kodiak library for various reasons. They had a program there for us homeless/transient types where you could subscribe to a paper of magazine and have it delivered to the library and I did that with Kepi Blanc for a couple of years. I did this to stay informed. One never knows what the future may bring. Skydivers repack their reserve 'chutes periodically, don't they? The smart ones do.
All the time I was in Alaska the Legion was not really a part of my life. I knew it was there but had no reason to think about it. On the other hand, a couple of times a few criminal opportunities came up and I opted out because I knew that getting popped would make me ineligible for the Legion. After all, you never eat your survival rations unless you are in extremis. If I was so desperate so as to do something like that I would have just enlisted and gotten it over with.
Meanwhile about a year or so later while I was in Alaska someone named Al asked my father about me. He asked my father what I was doing in Alaska and wanted details Dad just didn't have. Dad chuckled he didn't have a clue and said it was like having a son in the Foreign Legion. Big mistake.
Apparently he told his wife and the rumor I HAD joined the Legion went through town again. Two days later he came home from work and my mother was swollen eyed. She had been crying. Dad took one look at her. She was a mess. He asked her what happened. Mom blurted out "Piccolo joined the foreign Legion. Delores and Lisa just told me."
Caught completely off guard, Dad's knee jerk reaction was to tell Mom to grab her bag so they could go to St. Mary's and make a Novena. When she left the room Dad had a 'Wait a minute...' moment and went over to the telephone table and went to the emergency numbers on the back page of the phone book. He then dialed the number for Tony's bar in Kodiak.
Now I was sitting in Tony's at the time well into my third (or maybe seventh)beer. I was sitting in the stool nearest the phone. The bartender was busy when it rang so he said, "Hey, Piccolo. Grab that." I was surprised to hear my father's voice and even more surprised to hear him snap, "Tell your mother you didn't join the goddamned Foreign Legion!"
I could tell he was madder than hell, but not mad at me. I spoke with my mother who seemed to settle down immediately.
Dad took the phone back and told me what had happened and I both laughed and cringed. I laughed like hell because I was 3036 miles away from it all. Then I cringed because I knew what I was in for the next time I went home to visit.
Never when I was in Alaska did I even come close to having a reason to even seriously consider joining the Legion. Life was just too good there. It was always a last ditch plan and I never wanted for anything in Alaska.
Although in Alaska once a nosy tourist asked me what brought me to Alaska and I told him it was because I got kicked out of the French Foreign Legion for knifing a nosy tourist in Aubagne. He shut up and left in a hurry.
After I left Alaska in late '89 and moved to Pittsburgh I briefly worked at framing houses and in early '90 wandered into the maritime industry. I have to credit the Legion for getting my foot in the door of that industry.
Do not ask. I will not post it until I retire. Only one person knows about this and if he lets the cat out of the bag he will be exposed to leprosy and I will sell tickets to watch him rot. Suffice to say it is a story containing a lot of the humor and pathos of life. The Legion got me through the door and I have made my own career since.
Early in in my maritime career I turned 40 and called my mother and announced I was now too old to join the Legion. She laughed and said she was overjoyed. I wish my father was alive then. He would have laughed like holy hell.
I owe the Legion a few things. They did save my life and I certainly owe them a debt of gratitude for that. Their existence got me started on my career.
Still, I think the biggest thing they did for me was simply be there as a last ditch plan. At various times when life wasn't too cheery, I'd often say to myself, "It's this or the Legion!"
They served as a sometimes needed motivator to keep me plugging way. Many of us need one.
I remember one time in a fish cannery I overheard a young woman on her first day of smacking roe herring mutter, "Oh, well. At least it's not prostitution." Prostitution to her was what the Legion had been to me, only I suppose somewhat more socially acceptable, depending on one's point of view. My opinion on that shifts with the wind., although one time I heard a hooker say, "At least it's hot cannery work". Go figure. I suppose it's all a matter of perspective.
As far as the Legion goes it is a shame we never took the idea from the French. After 3 years you can get a French passport (About 80% of legionnaires do) and receive full French citizenship after their first five year contract.
This would be a damned good way to permit legal immigrants to serve and would get us some damned good and motivated soldiers.
You can tell what's going on in the world by looking at who enlists in the Legion, too. As I write the Legion is getting a lot of Venezuelan applicants because Venezuela is a mess.
Not too many people that live in nice places opt for such a hard road. While the brutality of the old days is long gone, there is still a certain amount of corporal punishment and discipline is very strict. It's also gotten a lot more professional. the 2e REP (paratroopers) regiment is every bit as good as any and better then most. The Legion is truly a professional arm of the French Army.
Aftermath. Late July, 2019. My old neighborhood general store.
I was back in town for my 50th high school reunion and wandered into the store that had been modernized. I was talking to the clerk and an old woman well into her 90s walked in. She seemed to be vaguely familiar. I said nothing.
The old woman looked at me curiously and then asked me if I was Piccolo. I said I was.
"Oh," she said. "When did you get out of the Foreign Legion?"
I threw in the towel and told her I was home on leave.
Later when I got home from the reunion in a fit of sarcastic pique I found a bookbinder and he bound me up a beautiful book. The title is 'Piccolo's adventures in the French Foreign Legion" with me listed as the author. It is presently in the footlocker with the other stuff.
Seeing I never served in the Legion it is a book of blank pages. sarcasm runs deep in my family and I bet that the book will be handed down for generations.
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To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
