Well I’ve been asked to tell about some of the courses I’ve done during my legion time. I’ll do it every now and again so as not to make things boring. I mean I could make a list and post that, but it wouldn’t really tell anyone what the course involves. I won’t put them in order as I’ll probably come across a couple that I’ve done in between time. So I’ll start with the juiciest.
Fast forward my career to 1991. I was sent to the !3 DBLE in 1990 to work as a life guard in Gabode, (name of the barracks) Djibouti. I’d already done my lifesaver’s course (to be recounted in another post) in the REP. Main occupation watching people swim and giving swimming lessons to non-swimmers. The Non-swimmers were mainly corporal chefs who were not interested in learning and I was a corporal who just prayed that someone with rank wouldn’t come and check the progress.
Two times a week I’d have the children of the legion families for lessons. They were keen and made a lot of progress. But then again their mum’s were watching them and threatening them that they’d tell their dad.
After a year I was sent down to the CECAP (commando training center) because they needed a BNSSA (lifeguard) and a medic, another course I’d done in 3 REI in ‘87. There everyone mucks in whether it’s on the obstacle courses or refueling the reservoirs.
Because the commando training center was on the beach –Arta Plage, plage meaning beach- there was a lot of nautical activity. This meant zodiacs for training with and security when the trainees are going over the water obstacle course. So there is at least ten 6 man zodiacs and 4 10 man Zodiacs.
For any repairs they would have to be sent to Djibouti (Name of the country but also the capital). The Marine Nationale – French navy- had a repair ship which would follow the fleet which was based in Djibouti. The zodiacs were sent to this ship and we’d get them back a couple of weeks later.
Someone then had a great idea to send a couple of the ‘aide monitors’ as we were known, to learn how to do the repairs. Myself, Mick Purcell and S/C (I forget the name, but he was English) were sent on the course. The latter only joined the course to get another course under his belt, I never saw him once with a pot of glue.
So the 3 anglophones turn up at the docks to spend 5 days with the French Navy learning how to repair zodiacs. We’d go there in the mornings and go to the legion barracks in the late afternoon. At first they were a bit wary having 3 legionnaires from the CECAP, all English speakers to spend five days with them. That was quickly overcome.
Not only did they show us things that were considered to be our level but also things that were of a more complex level that would require the other Navy boats to send their zodiacs over to be repaired by them. I mean learning to put on a patch, is much like putting on a patch on a bicycle inner tube.
We learnt how to change the valves and replace the cones etc. and each day we’d get half an hour tying different knots.
So that is one course I did. You may be asking what is ‘juicy’ about that? Well when I returned to the REP after my 2 years I was a corporal chef and affected to the CCS, support and logistics company. I was to be a garde punis, or prison warden.
After a year of watching prisoners pulling weeds and sweeping roads I was attached to the 3rd company to go to Djibouti for 4 months. I was to run the foyer, which is not such a great job. Selling chocolate bars and beer.
However one day the CDU- the captain, told me to close the foyer and take him to one of the Djiboutian regular army camps. On the way he asked me what I’d done during my two years there in the 13. I told him and straight away he grabbed onto my zodiac repair course with the French navy. Now for those who don’t know, the 3 CIE of the REP is the amphibious company which at the time had somewhere in the region of 60 floaters. I say floaters because zodiac is a trade name and there are others.
So no more prisoners for me. Now if anyone has had the patience to read this far… the company has been sent on a four month mission to Central African Republic. To cut out all the details, one of the two teams of CRAP (nowadays GCP) 13 Regimet de Dragon Parachutistes needed two motorists to take them along the Kadei river. They were in a building separated from the rest of the camp. We came across them a couple of years later in Mostar, ex-yougoslavia. Myself, being a zodiac repairman and an outboard motor mechanic, Graczek, were picked.
Their team consisted of 2 sergeant chefs and 2 corporal chefs. They had received orders to seek a mercenary training camp along the river and to give the coordinates. We were armed with a FAMAS each and a side pistol, for Graczek and I it was the 9mm browning. Plus there was a case of defensive grenades and two 66 rocket launchers.
We spent a week looking for the camp. Graczek and I would be waiting by the zodiacs while the CRAP team would go off into the jungle.
Not really a claim to fame as we were all pulled out as there was fresh info about the location far from where we were. But in order to be able to relate the story I had to have done a zodiac repair course.
On a foot note, I didn’t want to mention this story, although I have already spoken about it in another post, when the soldier from the 13 RDP was killed not so long ago. It would have looked as if I was trying to make myself interesting.
Fast forward my career to 1991. I was sent to the !3 DBLE in 1990 to work as a life guard in Gabode, (name of the barracks) Djibouti. I’d already done my lifesaver’s course (to be recounted in another post) in the REP. Main occupation watching people swim and giving swimming lessons to non-swimmers. The Non-swimmers were mainly corporal chefs who were not interested in learning and I was a corporal who just prayed that someone with rank wouldn’t come and check the progress.
Two times a week I’d have the children of the legion families for lessons. They were keen and made a lot of progress. But then again their mum’s were watching them and threatening them that they’d tell their dad.
After a year I was sent down to the CECAP (commando training center) because they needed a BNSSA (lifeguard) and a medic, another course I’d done in 3 REI in ‘87. There everyone mucks in whether it’s on the obstacle courses or refueling the reservoirs.
Because the commando training center was on the beach –Arta Plage, plage meaning beach- there was a lot of nautical activity. This meant zodiacs for training with and security when the trainees are going over the water obstacle course. So there is at least ten 6 man zodiacs and 4 10 man Zodiacs.
For any repairs they would have to be sent to Djibouti (Name of the country but also the capital). The Marine Nationale – French navy- had a repair ship which would follow the fleet which was based in Djibouti. The zodiacs were sent to this ship and we’d get them back a couple of weeks later.
Someone then had a great idea to send a couple of the ‘aide monitors’ as we were known, to learn how to do the repairs. Myself, Mick Purcell and S/C (I forget the name, but he was English) were sent on the course. The latter only joined the course to get another course under his belt, I never saw him once with a pot of glue.
So the 3 anglophones turn up at the docks to spend 5 days with the French Navy learning how to repair zodiacs. We’d go there in the mornings and go to the legion barracks in the late afternoon. At first they were a bit wary having 3 legionnaires from the CECAP, all English speakers to spend five days with them. That was quickly overcome.
Not only did they show us things that were considered to be our level but also things that were of a more complex level that would require the other Navy boats to send their zodiacs over to be repaired by them. I mean learning to put on a patch, is much like putting on a patch on a bicycle inner tube.
We learnt how to change the valves and replace the cones etc. and each day we’d get half an hour tying different knots.
So that is one course I did. You may be asking what is ‘juicy’ about that? Well when I returned to the REP after my 2 years I was a corporal chef and affected to the CCS, support and logistics company. I was to be a garde punis, or prison warden.
After a year of watching prisoners pulling weeds and sweeping roads I was attached to the 3rd company to go to Djibouti for 4 months. I was to run the foyer, which is not such a great job. Selling chocolate bars and beer.
However one day the CDU- the captain, told me to close the foyer and take him to one of the Djiboutian regular army camps. On the way he asked me what I’d done during my two years there in the 13. I told him and straight away he grabbed onto my zodiac repair course with the French navy. Now for those who don’t know, the 3 CIE of the REP is the amphibious company which at the time had somewhere in the region of 60 floaters. I say floaters because zodiac is a trade name and there are others.
So no more prisoners for me. Now if anyone has had the patience to read this far… the company has been sent on a four month mission to Central African Republic. To cut out all the details, one of the two teams of CRAP (nowadays GCP) 13 Regimet de Dragon Parachutistes needed two motorists to take them along the Kadei river. They were in a building separated from the rest of the camp. We came across them a couple of years later in Mostar, ex-yougoslavia. Myself, being a zodiac repairman and an outboard motor mechanic, Graczek, were picked.
Their team consisted of 2 sergeant chefs and 2 corporal chefs. They had received orders to seek a mercenary training camp along the river and to give the coordinates. We were armed with a FAMAS each and a side pistol, for Graczek and I it was the 9mm browning. Plus there was a case of defensive grenades and two 66 rocket launchers.
We spent a week looking for the camp. Graczek and I would be waiting by the zodiacs while the CRAP team would go off into the jungle.
Not really a claim to fame as we were all pulled out as there was fresh info about the location far from where we were. But in order to be able to relate the story I had to have done a zodiac repair course.
On a foot note, I didn’t want to mention this story, although I have already spoken about it in another post, when the soldier from the 13 RDP was killed not so long ago. It would have looked as if I was trying to make myself interesting.