Diary of a Legionnaire
Diary of a Legionnaire

Author: Gareth Carins

Publisher: Grosvenor House Pub Limited

Published: 2007-10-01

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781906210397

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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

Legionnaire
Legionnaire

Author: Simon Murray

Publisher: Presidio Press

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0307415813

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“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

Fighting for the French Foreign Legion
Fighting for the French Foreign Legion

Author: Alex Lochrie

Publisher: Grub Street Publishers

Published: 2009-11-19

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 1848846967

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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.

Hidden Soldier
Hidden Soldier

Author: Padraig O'Keeffe

Publisher: The O'Brien Press

Published: 2013-08-16

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1847176224

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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.

Voices of the Foreign Legion
Voices of the Foreign Legion

Author: Adrian D. Gilbert

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-04-06

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1626367841

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The French Foreign Legion has established a reputation as the most formidable of military forces. Created as a means of protecting French interests abroad, the legion spearheaded French colonialism in North Africa during the nineteenth century. Accepting volunteers from all parts of the world, the legion acquired an aura of mystery—and a less than enviable reputation for brutality within its ranks. Attracting recruits from all over the world, these new soldiers explain in their own words why they submitted themselves to such brutal training. Voices of the Foreign Legion looks at how the legion selects its recruits, where they come from, and why they seek a life of incredible hardship and danger. It also analyzes the legion’s strict attitude toward discipline, questions why desertion is a perennial problem, and assesses the legion’s military achievements since its formation in 1831. Its scope ranges from the conquest of the colonies in Africa and the Far East, through the horrors of the two World Wars, to the bitter but ultimately hopeless battles to maintain France’s imperial possessions.

Appel
Appel

Author: Joel Adam Struthers

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2019-03-29

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1771121068

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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.

A Diary of Hope
A Diary of Hope

Author: Andrew Gabriel

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2008-11-29

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 0557050448

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My grandfather, Frank Carollo, was a prisoner of war in the infamous POW camp Stalag 17 B during World War II. During these dark days, he managed to keep a diary of his experiences, depicting everyday life within, through beautiful short stories, poetry, and drawings. Now years later, I've taken his accounts, adding background details from friends and family, to create a memoir of hope, love, and survival; a story of one man's life before, during, and after being confined within one of the most notorious of Nazi camps. 20% of the profits from each book sold will be donated to the national Alzheimer's Association, in memory of Frank Carollo.

Dreams of a Great Small Nation
Dreams of a Great Small Nation

Author: Kevin J McNamara

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2016-03-29

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1610394852

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"The pages of history recall scarcely any parallel episode at once so romantic in character and so extensive in scale." -- Winston S. Churchill In 1917, two empires that had dominated much of Europe and Asia teetered on the edge of the abyss, exhausted by the ruinous cost in blood and treasure of the First World War. As Imperial Russia and Habsburg-ruled Austria-Hungary began to succumb, a small group of Czech and Slovak combat veterans stranded in Siberia saw an opportunity to realize their long-held dream of independence. While their plan was audacious and complex, and involved moving their 50,000-strong army by land and sea across three-quarters of the earth's expanse, their commitment to fight for the Allies on the Western Front riveted the attention of Allied London, Paris, and Washington. On their journey across Siberia, a brawl erupted at a remote Trans-Siberian rail station that sparked a wholesale rebellion. The marauding Czecho-Slovak Legion seized control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and with it Siberia. In the end, this small band of POWs and deserters, whose strength was seen by Leon Trotsky as the chief threat to Soviet rule, helped destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire and found Czecho-Slovakia. British prime minister David Lloyd George called their adventure "one of the greatest epics of history," and former US president Teddy Roosevelt declared that their accomplishments were "unparalleled, so far as I know, in ancient or modern warfare."

Outlaw Platoon
Outlaw Platoon

Author: Sean Parnell

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2012-02-28

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0062066412

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A riveting story of American fighting men, Outlaw Platoon is Lieutenant Sean Parnell’s stunning personal account of the legendary U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division’s heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan. Acclaimed for its vivid, poignant, and honest recreation of sixteen brutal months of nearly continuous battle in the deadly Hindu Kesh, Outlaw Platoon is a Band of Brothers or We Were Soldiers Once and Young for the early 21st century—an action-packed, highly emotional true story of enormous sacrifice and bravery. A magnificent account of heroes, renegades, infidels, and brothers, it stands with Sebastian Junger’s War as one of the most important books to yet emerge from the heat, smoke, and fire of America’s War in Afghanistan.

The French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion

Author: Douglas Boyd

Publisher: Ian Allen Pub

Published: 2010-01

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 9780711035003

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The French Foreign Legion is an extraordinary and unique army, specifically created for foreign nationals wishing to serve in the French Armed Forces, but commanded by French officers. For nearly two centuries, adventure seekers or men on the run from all around the globe have found a home in the Foreign Legion and shed blood for France. In this book, author Douglas Boyd has been given unrivalled access to the Legion to tell its story from its inception in the 1830s, when it was primarily used to protect and expand the French colonial empire during the nineteenth century, but it has also fought in almost all French wars including the Franco-Prussian War and both World Wars. The Legion is today known as an elite military unit whose training focuses not only on traditional military skills, but also on its strong esprit de corps.