And they actually did. How did they do it?
They answered a letter I wrote them. Simple.
In 1976 I was living in a tipi in the Rockies and was looking on to another adventure. I considered a job as a game warden in Africa and wrote practically every African country. As an afterthought I heard the Legion did law enforcement work in Africa so I wrote them, too.
Some of my letters went unanswered, others gave me wishy-washy half-assed statements and a number of them were looking for mercenary soldiers. Rhodesia offered me a job in the Rhodesian army. You've probably seen the vintage 'Be a man among men' posters. I wasn't interested in any of it.
The French Foreign Legion, much to my surprise, answered me with a very well thought out letter to me. The writer suggested that being an African game warden was a good way to end up dead rather quickly as ivory and Black Rhino horn poachers would murder me in a heartbeat. He told me what kind of money was in poaching and I decided that maybe being a game warden in Africa wasn't a very good idea. I opted to Plan B and when I moved out of the tipi, I hitch-hiked to Alaska.
Of course, that's too simple for most people. When I say the Legion saved my life they can't believe the story. Apparently there isn't enough drama to suit them.
On the other hand, a lot of people will believe something along these lines like about falling in love with the Sheik of Araby's beautiful daughter.
The Sheik refused to let his beautiful daughter marry such a worthless Irish bum like myself so one night I stole the Sheik's favorite horse and my beloved jumped on behind me and we rode off into the desert with my cape swirling majestically.
The Sheik summoned his men and the chase was on! Over a thousand Tuaregs chased us and tried to run us down like dogs.
Fort Zindernauf appeared on the horizon so we made a break for it. We galloped through the open gates and I was immediately handed a rifle and joined in the fighting where I won theLegion of Honor by shooting 38 Tuaregs off of a camel's back.
(If you want to know how they got so many people on the back of a camel Google 'Marx Brothers cabin scene')
After the Tuaregs retreated we galloped off but the chase didn't stop. We had to flee London, Paris, Rome and Kodiak with the Sheik's men in hot pursuit. We were chased through the cities of gold, Phoenix, Tuscon and Las Vegas until we finally managed to find peace in Chicago.
We found wedded bliss and we had two lovely children together.
After the birth of our second child she went into a post partum depression and ran off with Larry the pimp, leaving me with the two kids.
Later I sent the two kids back to the Sheik with a letter explaining that they were his grandchildren and what happened to his daughter.
Over two months went by and I received a letter from the Sheik. He said he was grateful for the delivery of his grandchildren but was not surprised how things ended up.
He wrote that he actually really liked me and the reason he didn't want me to marry his daughter was that he knew what kind of a flake she was. He had been trying to save her to marry off to the Sheik two sand lots south of him as vengeance for cheating him out of six camels.
People don't believe the part about the Legion writing me a letter because it's simple and drama free. They're more apt to believe the Sheik's daughter part because they have been accustomed to seeing crap like that on TV.
87 times better than Second Hand Lions!
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