Fighting for the French Foreign Legion

Author: Alex Lochrie
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1848846967
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
A soldier’s true story of danger and adventure as a modern-day legionnaire in Kuwait, Bosnia, and beyond. With no French language ability, Alex Lochrie approached recruiters for the French Foreign Legion in Paris and embarked on the demanding selection process that followed. When he was accepted, he and other prospective legionnaires were sent to Southern France to begin the harsh recruit training course. The mix of nationalities and backgrounds among his fellows was enormous. New members are traditionally allowed to change their identities—and Lochrie chose to alter his age, becoming twenty-eight instead of thirty-eight. Elite paratrooper training followed in Corsica before Lochrie earned his wings. The FFL is never far from the front line, and in this book he tells of challenging active service in former French colonies in Africa as well as during the first Gulf War, evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and operations in Bosnia and Sarajevo. This gripping account lifts the veil of mystery and myth, pulling you into the action—and revealing much about the realities of service in the Foreign Legion.

Legionnaire

Author: Simon Murray
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0307415813
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
“A pleasure to read and nearly impossible to put down.” –Army Times “Embodies an experience that many have enjoyed in fantasy–few in reality.” –The Washington Post The French Foreign Legion–mysterious, romantic, deadly–is filled with men of dubious character, and hardly the place for a proper Englishman just nineteen years of age. Yet in 1960, Simon Murray traveled alone to Paris, Marseilles, and ultimately Algeria to fulfill the toughest contract of his life: a five-year stint in the Legion. Along the way, he kept a diary. Legionnaire is a compelling, firsthand account of Murray’s experience with this legendary band of soldiers. This gripping journal offers stark evidence that the Legion’s reputation for pushing men to their breaking points and beyond is well deserved. In the fierce, sun-baked North African desert, strong men cracked under brutal officers, merciless training methods, and barbarous punishments. Yet Murray survived, even thrived. For he shared one trait with these hard men from all nations and backgrounds: a determination never to surrender. “The drama, excitement, and color of a good guts-and-glory thriller.” –Dr. Henry Kissinger

Appel

Author: Joel Adam Struthers
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 1771121068
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Book Description
Appel: A Canadian in the French Foreign Legion is the first-hand account of the author’s six years as a professional soldier during the 1990s, and his experience in the Legion's elite Groupe des Commandos Parachutistes (GCP). Joel Struthers recounts the dangers and demands of military life, from the rigours of recruitment and operational training in the rugged mountains of France, to face-to-face combat in the grasslands of some of Africa’s most troubled nations. Told through the eyes of a soldier, and interspersed with humorous anecdotes, Appel is a fascinating story that debunks myths about the French Foreign Legion and shows it more accurately as a professional arm of the French military. Struthers provides insight into the rigorous discipline that the Legion instills in its young recruits, – who trade their identities as individuals for a life of adventure and a role in a unified fighting force whose motto is “Honour and Loyalty.” Foreword by Col. Benoit Desmeulles, former commanding officer of the Legions 2e Régiment Étranger Parachutistes.

Legion of the Lost

Author: Jaime Salazar
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101118466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Book Description
The son of underpaid Mexican immigrants, Jaime earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue. But at twenty-three, he was disillusioned with the corporate fast track. So he became an outcast American in a hard-bitten group of recruits-men on the run from their pasts, men without hope: He joined the French Foreign Legion. From the Legion's notoriously brutal training to Salazar's fierce competitiveness, ultimate disillusionment and dramatic desertion, Legion of the Lost is a compelling, firsthand account of today's French Foreign Legion that will dispel myths while adding to the legend of the finest trained army of warriors the world has ever known.

Marching with the Devil

Author: David Mason
Publisher: Hachette Australia
ISBN: 0733627080
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
`Since its creation in 1831, the French Foreign Legion has become the stuff of myth, fiction and dreams... Anyone thinking of joining up would be well advised to read this book first? - The Sun Herald A real-life boy's own adventure, Marching With The Devil is an account of David Mason's five years in the infamous French Foreign Legion. David Mason graduated from the Australian National University with a law degree and an honours degree. Like those around him, he could easily have settled for a life of share portfolios, good suits, new cars and big houses. But David wanted more ? he wanted a challenge, an adventure, something beyond the ordinary that would test him physically and mentally. He looked around to see what he could do. Working in an open-cut mine . . . done that. Running a marathon . . . hmm, not hard enough. Climbing Everest . . . maybe? Joining the French Foreign Legion . . . perfect! Marching With The Devil is the gripping true story of what happened when an Australian lawyer left his comfortable existence and joined the legendary French Foreign Legion. He stayed for five years and served time in the elite Parachute Regiments. With the motto 'March or Die', the legion has a history of pain, grief and glory. David Mason takes us behind the myth to reveal exactly what happens: the adventure, the danger, the drinking, the fighting and the lies that sustain the legend.fore the final choice must be made. `Remarkable... It's hard not to think it a shame that a man of such obvious gifts should have wasted them on the legion, just so as not to have to feel like a quitter, even if this book was the result? - The Age `Marching with the Devil quickly turns into an insightful and honest account of an unpretentious Aussie's experiences in one of the most ramshackle and soul-destroying military organisations on Earth? - Courier Mail `A strangely compulsive read about one man?s quest for self knowledge? - Men's Health Magazine `Mason left a comfortable life in Australia to test himself in the crucible of the legion, and he writes about it 20 years after his service time necessary to give himself the distance and context he needed to write about an extraordinary and painful experience? - Sunday Mail Brisbane

Life in the French Foreign Legion

Author: Evan McGorman
Publisher: Hellgate Press
ISBN: 9781555716332
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Forget all your preconceptions about the French Foreign Legion. Many of the legends you grew up with no longer apply, so whatever you've heard probably does not reflect the reality of service today. Evan McGorman explains in detail how to apply to get into this elite corps, what to expect if accepted, and how to make the most of the experience.

Hidden Soldier

Author: Padraig O'Keeffe
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
ISBN: 1847176224
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
Pádraig O'Keeffe joined the elite and secretive French Foreign Legion at the age of twenty, seeking a challenge that would absorb his interests and intensity. He served with the Legion in Cambodia and Bosnia, then returned to civilian life, but military habits would not allow him to settle. His need for intense excitement and extreme danger drove him back to the lifestyle he knew and loved, and using his Legion training, he became a 'hidden soldier' by opting for security missions in Iraq and Haiti. In Iraq he was the sole survivor of an ambush in no man's land between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, the most dangerous place on earth. An intense, exciting and vivid account of extraordinary and sometimes horrific events, Hidden Soldier lifts the veil on the dark and shadowy world of security contractors and what the situation is really like in Iraq as well as other trouble spots. This bestseller also includes photographs taken by Padraig O'Keeffe while he was a Legionnaire and when he was in Iraq.

Diary of a Legionnaire

Author: Gareth Carins
Publisher: Grosvenor House Pub Limited
ISBN: 9781906210397
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
After finishing university but not ready to settle down, Gareth Carins joined the French Foreign Legion in 1996 and served for five years in their elite Parachute Regiment. He experienced at first hand the extremes of human nature, witnessing both the brutal cruelty shown by some Legionnaires in the name of tradition, to the personal sacrifices shown by others. Along the way he met many of the fascinating characters that come from all corners of the world to serve in the ranks of the Foreign Legion. Diary of a Legionnaire is a candid and eye opening insight into this mysterious army, told through Gareth's exciting and at times humorous adventures during the first eighteen months of his service, as we follow him from the brutality of basic training, to the realities of combat in the jungles of West Africa

My Camp

Author: J. R. Lawrence
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781521596876
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Book Description
Follow the story of a young man, who, through a chance encounter in prison, leaves his life of crime and joins the ranks of one of the world's toughest fighting forces.J. R. Lawrence served in the 3rd company of the parachute regiment (2REP) from 2007 - 2011.The author served in the Foreign Legion during the War on Terror period and the book includes a chapter on the war in Afghanistan.

Forgotten Wars

Author: Włodzimierz Borodziej
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108944884
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Book Description
Włodzimierz Borodziej and Maciej Górny set out to salvage the historical memory of the experience of war in the lands between Riga and Skopje, beginning with the two Balkan conflicts of 1912–1913 and ending with the death of Emperor Franz Joseph in 1916. The First World War in the East and South-East of Europe was fought by people from a multitude of different nationalities, most of them dressed in the uniforms of three imperial armies: Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian. In this first volume of Forgotten Wars, the authors chart the origins and outbreak of the First World War, the early battles, and the war's impact on ordinary soldiers and civilians through to the end of the Romanian campaign in December 1916, by which point the Central Powers controlled all of the Balkans except for the Peloponnese. Combining military and social history, the authors make extensive use of eyewitness accounts to describe the traumatic experience that established a region stretching between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas.