Knocking the French: Why?

NavySEALs.com ^ | July 30, 2006 | W. Thomas Smith Jr.

[SuzyQ2]

But we Americans seem to have short memories.

What else could explain the fact that we, generally speaking, so-often lambaste the French, calling them “cowards” for not allying themselves fully with us in every instance? We constantly throw in their faces the fact that we came to their rescue in World Wars I and II. And we’ve all heard the jokes: “Surplus French military rifles for sale. Never fired. Dropped once.”

[billhilly]

One Frenchman?

[Ninian Dryhope]

"We constantly throw in their faces the fact that we came to their rescue in World Wars I and II."

Only because we bring it up every time they hand us a ration of $hit, and they try to do that to us constantly.

[SuzyQ2]

"But what about the great men with names like Lafayette, Rochambeau, d’ Estaing, DeGrasse, L’Enfant, La Rouërie, even Johann Baron de Kalb, a Bavarian born soldier who held a commission in the French Army ... "

[Fresh Wind]

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Knocking the French: Why?

I give up! Oh, wait, that's their line.

[Darth Republican]

Are any of them still living?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Knocking the French: Why?

In my case it is a family tradition.

400 years ago the french were our allies. We fought beside them in their wars. Peace came and then the enemy came after us. The french decided that it would be more economically advantageous to let us be slaughtered. We were.

In 400 years they show no signs of improvement.

[righttackle44]

"Knocking the French: Why?"

Because they don't knock themselves, and
they deserve it more than we do.

[GSlob]

A learned physician Girolamo Fracastoro [who started a theory of infectious diseases] wrote in 1530 a book entitled "Syphilis sive Morbus Gallicus" [i.e. "Syphilis or the French Disease"]. Francesco Guicciardini, a noted thinker and historian, about the same time characterized the French as "being beastly and unreasonable". Since such was their nature even as far ago as 1530, it would not be right to attribute their ill repute to the "Americans having short memories", despite the fact that there were no Americans in 1530.

[AdvisorB]

I don't know, the French just seem to have split personalities...

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

MARK TWAIN had the French pegged!

In certain public indecencies the difference between a dog & a Frenchman is not perceptible.
- Notebook #17, October 1878 - February 1879

It appears that at last census that every man in France over 16 years of age & under 116, has at least 1 wife to whom he has never been married. French novels, talk, drama & newspaper bring daily & overwhelming proofs that the most of the married ladies have paramours. This makes a good deal of what we call crime, and the French call sociability.
- Notebook #18, Feb.- Sept. 1879

French are the connecting link between man & the monkey.
- Notebook #18, Feb.- Sept. 1879

Trivial Americans go to Paris when they die.
- Notebook #18, Feb.- Sept. 1879

It is the language for lying compliment, for illicit love & for the conveying of exquisitely nice shades of meaning in bright graceful & trivial conversations--the conveying, especially of double-meanings, a decent & indecent one so blended as--nudity thinly veiled, but gauzily & lovelily.
- Notebook #18, Feb.- Sept. 1879

...anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the damnable. More than a hundred years ago somebody asked Quin, "Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?" "Yes," said he, "Last summer." I judge he spent his summer in Paris. Let us change the proverb; Let us say all bad Americans go to Paris when they die. No, let us not say it for this adds a new horror to Immortality.
- letter to Lucius Fairchild, 28 April 1880, reprinted in Mark Twain, The Letter Writer

An isolated & helpless young girl is perfectly safe from insult by a Frenchman, if he is dead.
- Notebook #20, Jan. 1882 - Feb. 1883

A dead Frenchman has many good qualities, many things to recommend him; many attractions--even innocencies. Why cannot we have more of these?
- Notebook #20, Jan. 1882 - Feb. 1883

[darkwing104]

Why not?

[GoMonster]

Always have good guns to buy from their military. Never fired and only dropped once.

[kingu]

It's always entertaining when you have to go back more than two centuries to find honorable French soldiers.

Seriously, the impression that the French gave that they want the Americans to butt out of everything because only they have the correct answer - oh, and by the way, could you expand your base?

So, yeah, I can easily find lots of people who live in France to call friend, and have as well. But their just as hateful of the insane socialists that are working to destroy not only their country, but the entire demi-state of Europe.

Oh, and we're still pissed about their refusing overflight rights to attack Libya.

[Bob]

You can always count on the French to be there when they need you.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

"In 400 years they show no signs of improvement."

la Legion was respectable.....mostly foreigners, though. Haven't heard a thing about it for years.....since 1976 or 77, when they pulled some expats out of Zaire when the Katangese rebels returned from Angola.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Because it is fun, and a long running tradition.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Have the French surrendered in the Mideast yet?

Because, as we all know, it's not a World War until the French surrender.