Some clarification needed

[maim]

1) Is it true that they have upped the pull-ups at the accession centers from 4 to 10-15 just to get yourself trough the door recently?

From 1982
Make sure you can do at least 10

2) Is it true that one is better off telling the truth at the gestapo interview instead of trying to mold the story into something that, shall we say, upps the chance for joining? (not that I would have anything to hide)

Lied my arse off to BSLE and got thru'

3) Is climbing rope a mandatory skill at any point during selection? And if you can't do 6 meters in 6 seconds only hands you drop out?

You could do hands only or hands and feet twice, no idea now

4) Is it true that the management wants you to spend your money on additional equipment despite being given standard issue kit, body armor, for example? Or a rucksack? (it would be desirable to buy a 'better one' so the majority of your earnings actually stays in France?)

Bought my own wet suit in the 5th Cie at Bonifacio

5) As for the martial preparation for the selection process, I found Stoengs training plan, which isn't practical for me, no woods in the vicinity.. Should one focus on push-ups, dips, Luc léger, général running and pull-ups mainly? Will it be enough?

Stoeng tells you exactly what you need to accomplish

6) Is it true that the 100 people deserting per year do so not because it is 'too hard' to endure life at the barracks (meaning it's much easier later- more freedom in general) but because they have unexpected family and other matters to tend to?

The stress is mental after you have achieved the rudimentary physical basics

7) A degree of flat feet, are they a problem?

Not for me, make the times/distance

8) How much of a plus is knowing 3-4 languages? And what about a university diploma?

Added bonus

9) Would you say being a légionnaire would enrich ones life somehow? I mean, I know various royalties have served in this institution, including the King of Serbia.
I understand that this is too subjective of a question, perhaps not clearly defined but do give it a shot. Enrichment means different things to different people.

Alan Seagar thought so

10) What about the likelihood of onset PTSD?

Bad dreams, howling nightmares and the night tremors are normal after combat experience

11) Can and will the legion sentance its légionnaires to death by firing squad if they commit a major breach of some written or unwritten rule? (not that I'm intending to do any of it surely, but I found a comment somewhere from a supposed ex légionnaire stating that his friend got shot for doing something forbidden.)

Bollocks, Degueldre was shot for treason due to the putsch. If you intend to assassinate the President of La Republique you can expect an extreme penalty

 

[Sarajevo1992]

View attachment 3444

Meindl: standard issue in the dutch forces. desert only on deployment, regularly black

 

[Andrija]

Greetings mate, I wouldnt worry too much about gear, a lot has changed in the modern legion.
For example 2REI is the first unit in the entire French military to test new equipment on a regimental level, the gear been given to Legionairres is top notch, as with all military issued equipment there will always be something left to desire.
It says something as well that the Legion was one of the first units in the French military to recieve the new hk416s.
Boots you probably wont get any better on civvie street without destroying your bank account, summer issue are meindel boots which are amazing quality and winter are haix nepal pros which are also fantastic boots.
The issue vest is now a CIRAS vest.

Focus more on fitness than anything else at the moment, that is your most essential piece of equipment.

Will do, thank you for the information!

 

[Andrija]

Bollocks, Degueldre was shot for treason due to the putsch. If you intend to assassinate the President of La Republique you can expect an extreme penalty

Yes, as in "he took things into his own hands" and shot and killed 6 civilians on the way.
That's a given.. But as for myself, the goal would be to serve avec honneur e fidélité.

 

[Andrija]

I had flat feet when i joined, june 83 and now 2018, my feet are below sea level
Nowadays, you can ease the stress on your feet, with made to measure insoles (ask a Podologue to make you some. ..they scan your feet and graphique image shows up where or where not, the pressure points are.
Certain exercices can be done to help build arch. ..ask a Podologue

Yes I know exactly what you are talking about. Good thing there's that option.

 

[Andrija]

Bollocks, Degueldre was shot for treason due to the putsch. If you intend to assassinate the President of La Republique you can expect an extreme penalty

Hey thank you for the answering my questions honestly.! Allan Seager certainly thought so!

 

[Joseph Cosgrove]

Hey thank you for the answering my questions honestly.! Allan Seager certainly thought so!

Andrija, I'm not sure what the connection with Allan Seager is or did you mean Alan Seeger ?


I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

 

[Le petit caporal]

JFK s favorite poem

 

[Andrija]

Andrija, I'm not sure what the connection with Allan Seager is or did you mean Alan Seeger ?


I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

I ment Allan the poet, the joined the Legion to defend France and its culture from nazis and got shot from some German at a trench while clearing it.. You didn't refer to that one?
Didn't find any other Allan..

 

[Le petit caporal]

Alan Seager 1st world war (no Nazis then (except a petit caporal )

 

[USMCRET]

I can't speak for the FFL. However the Cdos and Paras of my day had to wear the official kit especially when in the Depot or other barracks. The Regimental system had to be adhered to. However when operating in the field allowances were made for individual footwear, clothing and other items. As long as fighting efficiency was not impaired, sensible personal kit was acceptable. However even the USMC in Korea were astounded to see 41 Independent Cdo RM clean shaven on a daily basis. That is a fact and they were called the 'Chosin Few' after the locality in that mean, nasty and brutal war.

The Frozen Chosin are highly honored!

 

[Joseph Cosgrove]

"A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, at the height of World War I, the Battle of the Somme raged in northern France. More than 600,000 British and French troops became casualties trying to break the German lines, yet an American became arguably as celebrated as any of them, even though his nation had not yet entered the war. A few weeks before he was killed, Alan Seeger, A.B. 1910—a tall, mop-haired French Foreign Legionnaire—composed an eerie, premonitory three-stanza poem. Either despite or because of its brevity, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” was an instant classic—the most famous American poem of a verse-filled war. It became not only a staple of high-school English-class recitations but also the favorite poem of President John F. Kennedy ’40....

...The guns of August 1914 announced his path: 23 days after the outbreak of war, Seeger enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Like many who rushed to the colors, he envisioned a brief, glorious conflict he would survive. On October 17, from training camp at Aube, he wrote his mother: “Do not worry, for the chances are small of not returning and I think you can count on seeing me…next summer.”...

...On July 4, three days after the start of the Somme offensive, Seeger’s battalion was ordered to capture the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. The first wave went forward, Seeger’s reserve company following. A friend and fellow legionnaire, an Egyptian named Rif Baer, chronicled his final moments. “His tall silhouette stood out on the green of the cornfield,” Baer wrote. “…His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared and that was the last time I saw my friend.” Twelve days before, Seeger had turned 28.'"

After the war, his father went to the battle field where his son was killed. There was no telling the exact spot so his father built a small Chapel to honor his son.

 

[Andrija]

Alan Seager 1st world war (no Nazis then (except a petit caporal )

Fck,of course! I'm sorry for the critical mistake.. I know my history better then I led you to believe..

 

[keegan mactavish]

Seems like Egyptians have been a part of the tradition for a looong time

 

[jonny]

10) What about the likelihood of onset PTSD?

11) Can and will the legion sentance its légionnaires to death by firing squad if they commit a major breach of some written or unwritten rule? (not that I'm intending to do any of it surely, but I found a comment somewhere from a supposed ex légionnaire stating that his friend got shot for doing something forbid

Answers from an ancien;

10. None, you are a professional. Professionais dont get PTSD
11. Probably, if you come up with this kind of stupid questions.

 

[USMCRET]

"A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, at the height of World War I, the Battle of the Somme raged in northern France. More than 600,000 British and French troops became casualties trying to break the German lines, yet an American became arguably as celebrated as any of them, even though his nation had not yet entered the war. A few weeks before he was killed, Alan Seeger, A.B. 1910—a tall, mop-haired French Foreign Legionnaire—composed an eerie, premonitory three-stanza poem. Either despite or because of its brevity, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” was an instant classic—the most famous American poem of a verse-filled war. It became not only a staple of high-school English-class recitations but also the favorite poem of President John F. Kennedy ’40....

...The guns of August 1914 announced his path: 23 days after the outbreak of war, Seeger enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Like many who rushed to the colors, he envisioned a brief, glorious conflict he would survive. On October 17, from training camp at Aube, he wrote his mother: “Do not worry, for the chances are small of not returning and I think you can count on seeing me…next summer.”...

...On July 4, three days after the start of the Somme offensive, Seeger’s battalion was ordered to capture the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. The first wave went forward, Seeger’s reserve company following. A friend and fellow legionnaire, an Egyptian named Rif Baer, chronicled his final moments. “His tall silhouette stood out on the green of the cornfield,” Baer wrote. “…His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared and that was the last time I saw my friend.” Twelve days before, Seeger had turned 28.'"

After the war, his father went to the battle field where his son was killed. There was no telling the exact spot so his father built a small Chapel to honor his son.

Great one Joe.

World War I was where new weapons of war, Machine Guns, Tanks, Chemical, and Air Craft, ripped apart the ancient tactics of mass formations, charges from trenches into very well laid out fields of fire. Coordinated Machine Gun fire completely devastated the charges. Like waves crashing against cliffs.

 

[USMCRET]

10) What about the likelihood of onset PTSD?

11) Can and will the legion sentance its légionnaires to death by firing squad if they commit a major breach of some written or unwritten rule? (not that I'm intending to do any of it surely, but I found a comment somewhere from a supposed ex légionnaire stating that his friend got shot for doing something forbid

Answers from an ancien;

10. None, you are a professional. Professionais dont get PTSD
11. Probably, if you come up with this kind of stupid questions.

Number 10, huh, well, beg to differ

 

[FloridaABN]

Great one Joe.


World War I was where new weapons of war, Machine Guns, Tanks, Chemical, and Air Craft, ripped apart the ancient tactics of mass formations, charges from trenches into very well laid out fields of fire. Coordinated Machine Gun fire completely devastated the charges. Like waves crashing against cliffs.

Winston S. Churchill's observations after World War I in his WWI memoirs/history are pretty acute. He had by then served in the Malakand Field Force, as a cavalry officer in the 21st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman, in the Boer War, as a war correspondent in Cuba and as an infantry battalion executive officer and battalion commander on the Western Front in 1915-1916. He was also First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 - 1915 when he was blamed for the failure of the Dardanelles Campaign and dismissed. He subsequently reentered the government as Minister of Munitions in charge of war production from 1917-1918.

Writing in the 1920s, he credited the magazine rifle and field artillery for creating the trench stalemate in the fall of 1914. The density of machine guns in infantry battalions was still very low in 1914. Most infantry battalions in all armies only had 2 to 4 machine guns. As the war went on machine guns proliferated greatly in all the armies. And so did the field artillery the generals like Falkenhayn, Joffre, French and Haig relied on to try to destroy the machine guns, trenches and extensive barb wire entanglements prior to their frontal attacks.

A large number of British officers, including Churchill himself, were already painfully aware from the Boer War that modern magazine rifles and quick firing field artillery had made frontal attacks too costly. The trench stalemate appeared because of this and the high concentration of forces in the West. There were no open flanks to attack. Instead there was a continuous fortified line extending from Switzerland to the English Channel. And Churchill regularly wrote memorandums in 1914 and throughout the war warning the British government that frontal attacks in the West would fail in the absence of new technology, such as the "tank" whose development he promoted from 1914 on.

Churchill's main rationale for the 1915 attack on the Dardanelles in Turkey ("Gallipoli") was a search for a "weaker" flank the British could attack by maneuver. Since no flank was open to tactical maneuver in the West he sought a flank on a grand strategic scale where the Royal Navy could fully participate in the attack.

fyi, "trench warfare" conditions reappeared in Korea from 1951 onward for approximately the same reason as on the Western Front forty years earlier. This was a very high density of combat forces per linear mile of front.

Most casualties in World War I were caused by field artillery, followed by machine guns and gas.

 

[USMCRET]

Winston S. Churchill's observations after World War I in his WWI memoirs/history are pretty acute. He had by then served in the Malakand Field Force, as a cavalry officer in the 21st Lancers at the Battle of Omdurman, in the Boer War, as a war correspondent in Cuba and as an infantry battalion executive officer and battalion commander on the Western Front in 1915-1916. He was also First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911 - 1915 when he was blamed for the failure of the Dardanelles Campaign and dismissed. He subsequently reentered the government as Minister of Munitions in charge of war production from 1917-1918.

Writing in the 1920s, he credited the magazine rifle and field artillery for creating the trench stalemate in the fall of 1914. The density of machine guns in infantry battalions was still very low in 1914. Most infantry battalions in all armies only had 2 to 4 machine guns. As the war went on machine guns proliferated greatly in all the armies. And so did the field artillery the generals like Falkenhayn, Joffre, French and Haig relied on to try to destroy the machine guns, trenches and extensive barb wire entanglements prior to their frontal attacks.

A large number of British officers, including Churchill himself, were already painfully aware from the Boer War that modern magazine rifles and quick firing field artillery had made frontal attacks too costly. The trench stalemate appeared because of this and the high concentration of forces in the West. There were no open flanks to attack. Instead there was a continuous fortified line extending from Switzerland to the English Channel. And Churchill regularly wrote memorandums in 1914 and throughout the war warning the British government that frontal attacks in the West would fail in the absence of new technology, such as the "tank" whose development he promoted from 1914 on.

Churchill's main rationale for the 1915 attack on the Dardanelles in Turkey ("Gallipoli") was a search for a "weaker" flank the British could attack by maneuver. Since no flank was open to tactical maneuver in the West he sought a flank on a grand strategic scale where the Royal Navy could fully participate in the attack.

fyi, "trench warfare" conditions reappeared in Korea from 1951 onward for approximately the same reason as on the Western Front forty years earlier. This was a very high density of combat forces per linear mile of front.

Most casualties in World War I were caused by field artillery, followed by machine guns and gas.

An Outstanding Post.

 

[jonny]

Number 10, huh, well, beg to differ

Yeah, I’m wrong on being so general about it, but I have not met any former legionnaire with anything resembling PTSD.