Phil Fullerton, retired lawyer, wrote a fine piece for Saturday's Valley Voices page on the French Foreign Legion, suggesting this might be a solution for America. Foreigners could get a fast-track to citizenship and the military gets a willing labor force. Phil, who lived in France for several years, sent me an e-mail yesterday with a little more detail on that topic.
"A dear friend of ours in Aix was Hugh McCleave who wrote "The Damned Die Hard," the premier English language history of the Legion. Their story is as heroic as it is tragic. They were the first into Dien Bien Phu, Algeria, Narvik in WWII. Their museum in Aubaugne is incredible. Tough guys."When you see the French gleefully offering troops, as in Lebanon, you have to pause and ask if it is the Legion. If so, they are not sending their own nationals. Something many politicians are more willing to do; and add that the National Assembly must approve any deployment into a combat zone of conscripted soldiers, and you can see that the Legion is a major factor in French foreign policy."
Nice insights . . . things are never as simple as they seem.
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