American troops through a French infantryman's eyes

americanthinker.com/ ^ | 11/21/08 | Thomas Lifson

[DogBarkTree]

hockingly positive views of our forces in Afghanistan are revealed in this translation of a post by a French OMLT (Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams) infantryman working with our toops there. A couple of brief excerpts:

Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans. [....]

Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.

The superb Jules Crittenden brought this to our attention. Read the whole thing here or here.

It is still popular, among conservatives in particular, to depict the French as implacable foes of everything American. Certainly the French left can be despicable, and nobody does snobbery better than the French. But I have been urging American conservatives to understand that we have many friends in France, that President Sarkozy is a worthy ally, and that we must remember the mutual aid that has characterized our relations from the American Revolution through two World Wars. The French are a highly accomplished nation, with some faults (who lacks them?) and many virtues.

[Atlantic Friend]

Or hey, Tommy, even better : why don’t you write to the family of the French NCO who was killed yesterday in Afghanistan Saturday to tell them that joke ?

I am sure they’ll find it funny.

[SMARTY]

AND... I think, NOT easily impressed

[DieHard the Hunter]

> AND... I think, NOT easily impressed

You’re right. They take an Oath never to surrender their dead, wounded, or weapons.

In practical terms, that means they must fight to the finish and not surrender. They’ve done that enough times in their history to prove that it’s more than just talk.

Men like that would not be easy to impress.

[CPT Clay]

bbt

[tom h]

Atlantic, I’ll apologize to Frenchies for that joke when you and your countrymen start apologizing for the wretched coverage of America and Americans, including President Bush for the past 50 years. Your nation’s media is appalling, your nation’s arrogance is unchanged for 300 years, and while your Freep description is appreciated we Yanks who remember the sacrifices we made to liberate Europe rarely see the gratitude that you express, from the rest of your countrymen. So I won’t apologize for the fact that I and tens of millions of other Americans do not feel that the French (unlike you, of course) are a bunch of worthless ingrates. Worthless leftist ingrates until you had the foresight to elect a conservative like Sarkozy.

100,000 French soldiers dying to defend France? 400,000 Americans died fighting a war that we didn’t start — a war that in Europe would never have happened if your ancestors in the military and the Government had had the balls to invade Germany in 1936 or 38 when Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland, invaded Austria, or invaded Czechoslovakia. But no, they sat around debating and arguing and pretending that their cowardice was diplomacy. And, in 1940, yes it was the French leaders who were primarily responsible for consigning your nation to four years of occupation. Your idiotic Government falls apart the day before invastion. The idiotic head of your military — too old to remember his own mistress’ name — resigns on the eve of the invasion. All this ridiculous Gallic pride and arrogance over four years leading to a disaster in Western Europe in 1940.

I know WWII well and the French stories I remember are the ones where German tanks raced passed retreating French soldiers, told them to stack their weapons, ran over the stacked weapons with a tank, and then continued on. The Frogs standing there looking on helplessly. Not much courage there. At least one of them might’ve tried to take out a few of the Hun b-stards rather than wandering back to Paris to drink more red wine.

I might believe that 100,000 French resistance fighters lost their lives far more easily. I think the pretty French girls carrying explosives in their lunch baskets to destroy German transports showed more courage than the worthless poilus who surrendered without a fight.

Sorry, more Brits died than Frenchmen on the battlefield in WWII. Don’t go trotting around your casualty statistics and pretend that between 1936 and 1944 that the French military was anything more than a paper tiger. And a cowardly one at that.