"It's been called an army of thieves and cutthroats" "I had gotten into some trouble back in in the States." "A band of hired killers." "I was in the Australian Army and I was kicked out." "But from the burning sands of Northern Africa to the jungles of South America," "whenever the odds are long and the battle fierce, the French Foreign Legion has been called into action." "I think they are more disposable." "They are ready for death." "The Persian Gulf, 1991." "An allied coalition unleashes Operation Desert Storm." "American forces lead the assault." "100 hours later, the Iraqis are defeated and Kuwait is liberated." "Over 30 nations came together to form the coalition, but one band of soldiers stood apart," "the French Foreign Legion." "A regiment shrouded in secrecy and littered with mystique." "They shouldered a heavy burden:" "Guard the coalition's left flank from counter attack." "General Norman Schwarzkopf commanded the allied coalition." "The Legion did a great job." "They had the mobility that was required for that kind of an operation." "A lot of people said when we went, proposed the operation in the first place that we'd bog down in the sand or we'd hit the rocks or something like that." "They didn't at all." "So that was really the ideal role for them." "Few know the Legion still exists." "Even fewer have been inside." "Since its inception nearly two centuries ago, the Legion goes where a legionnaire is most needed." "They're part of the regular French army, but no one holding a French passport is allowed to join." "Only foreigners can enlist." "And once you're in, you may not make it out." "The Legion was created as a way to funnel immigrants and criminals out of France, and onto the battlefield," "an idea as old as war itself, mercenaries who'll fight for profit, whatever the cost." "In a quiet town in the northeastern United States..." "Thomas Kadish goes about his daily routine." "For two and a half years he's worked as an auditor for a local oil company." "His weapons today are calculators and computers, but they weren't always" "Inside, Thomas hides secret memories of times passed and battles fought." "From 1980 to l985, Kadish served in the French Foreign Legion." "By the time he joined, he'd already spent four and a half years in the US Marine Corps." "When being one of the few and the proud lost its edge, he went looking for something more adventurous." "When I joined the Legion, I didn't know whether or not" "I would live through the five years." "My goal was to be a mercenary." "The life expectancy of a mercenary isn't very high." "I figured my life expectancy, as a Legionnaire would be about the same." "Today more than 8,000 men from over 130 countries serve in the French Foreign Legion." "Chinese," "British," "Australians..." "Fins," "Americans." "Colonel Bouquin is the commander of the Legion's Elite Second Parachute regiment." "There's only one difference between the French Foreign Legion and the, the rest of the French Army." "It is the fact that we accept foreigners." "For everything else it is almost exactly the same." "The same rules, the same equipment, the same weapons, the same vehicles, the same structures, same organization" "With one exception, while French law allows women to serve in the army, the Legion itself won't let them in." "General Bernard Grail is the highest-ranking offiicer in the French Foreign Legion." "For the moment, it is impossible for us to accept women into the Legion because our training system and our day to day life within the Legion just won't allow it." "To make this family work and create a cohesive unit from this group of foreigners, we have to place everybody into a big bowl, close the lid, and shake it around." "And like they do in other countries, we can't separate the men from the women." "Each man is here by his own choice." "Some are on the run." "Other's seek a challenge." "Most crave adventure and hear the calling of the warrior." "If you're going to join an army, you don't want to spend all your time in garrison, you don't want to waste your time training and training and training and never getting a chance to use it." "If you join the Legion, more likely than not you're gonna go to combat." "This is where their story begins." "Paris, Fort De Nogent, the entry point into the Legion." "Millions of men have passed through these gates into a dark and secretive world" "where only one in 12 is accepted, a fierce competition to be one of the chosen few." "It's the only institution of its kind in the world." "The only one that gives a man a second chance whatever the reason." "If the man wants to shed his old skin, leave behind his entire life, he can come to us and start over, be reborn in a way without a lot of questions about his past." "The point is that when everything is all right for you in your life you don't get the idea to join the French Foreign Legion." "Only people who had some kinds of failure in their life get the idea to join the Legion." "That's to say that they had a problem." "Not every one comes with baggage, but some do." "28-year-old Randolph Clark was rejected by the US military." "He discovered the Legion on the Internet." "Two months later, he arrived in Paris." "When I was around 18, 19 I had gotten in some trouble back in, in the States and I kind of sailed around a bit, went to college and decided that I need to make something happen." "The Legion offers every recruit a fresh start and a new identity, if he chooses." "A guy who was speaking in broken English said wait here." "And somebody else came in who spoke English much better and said," ""Why do you want to join the Legion?"" "So I told him why I wanted to join the Legion and he looked at my passport and he said, "Wait here."" "And about five minutes later he came back with a piece of paper with a different name typed on it and he said "Sign this."" ""Your name is now Jeffrey Keats."" "Under their new name they sign a five-year contract that promises a rendezvous with danger." "From this moment a recruit begins a new life, whether he's looking ahead or over his shoulder." "If he chooses to shun his past, it won't get through the front gate." "Colonel Mischka Yakovleff." "The idea is that, in effect, we'll sign the contract on the fake identity and that is anonymat." "We create a disconnect between the you were as a civilian before, and who you are now as a Legionnaire." "To someone who's looking for you, you're not there any more." "You've left this planet." "The new recruits get shipped south down to the outskirts of" "Marseilles in the town of Aubagne." "Here they undergo three weeks of rigorous testing." "Those who make the cut face a tougher ordeal." "16 weeks of basic training in southwestern France at the garrison of Castelnaudary." "Few recruits know what goes on here, but the rumors alone drive some away." "We heard that people got beaten to death in training and if you made a mistake you could get shot." "And that their live fire exercises were really live fire." "We've heard things like that and wondered whether or not they were true." "The truth itself is tough enough." "The pounding begins immediately." "An intense test of physical fitness, mental well being and the sheer will to live." "They have a different style than, than the Americans." "It's, it's a lot of physical work." "It's you go, you go, you go, you go, you go." "You have no choice." "You know, don't sit down." "Don't cry about it." "You go." "You're a Legionnaire." "Legionnaires train as they would fight and fight as they train." "And they're trained to be expendable." "More often than not they are sent to some of the most dangerous places in the world." "They usually like to send the Legion first because if things do work out, fine." "Then they can give the glory to the French Army and if they don't, well so a few foreigners got killed." "No big deal." "1997." "Chaos breaks out in the Republic of Congo." "Thousands of Europeans are trapped in the middle of a civil war." "Most European governments stand silently in the wings, too nervous to intervene." "But the French have an option the others lack, an army of foreigners willing to fight for France or die trying." "I think they are more disposable." "They have accepted to give their life for their new family." "They are eventually ready for death." "The Legion deploys 600 commandos from the Second Paratroop Regiment." "On the ground they encounter the legacy of France's colonial past." "Anti-French sentiment on both sides makes the Legionnaires targets themselves." "After days of attacks and counterattacks, they round up the foreign nationals and shepherd them to the airport." "One Legionnaire is killed." "Five others gravely wounded." "Lan Lawson is a 13-year veteran of the French Foreign Legion." "We evacuated six and a half thousand people over there in just under two weeks." "Some refused to go in to do the job." "They said it was too dangerous." "We were asked to do it, we went and did the job." "Showed the world that we could do it, but that's the way it goes." "That idea is drilled into every recruit at Castelnaudary." "Once the order is given, the mission is sacred." "And it will be accomplished," "but at what cost?" "After a few weeks of basic training, recruits break into smaller units and travel to camps outside Castelnaudary." "20-minute drive to the north is a secluded French Foreign Legion installation known as "The Farm."" "The recruits suffer together as a team." "The training methods aren't sophisticated," "exposure to cold, not enough food, not enough sleep." "Being an American, I was used to eating a normal breakfast." "Breakfast in the Legion is a small piece of bread and a cup of coffee and you don't get to eat anything until about nine or ten o'clock in the morning." "You're always running a food deficit." "So, you're starving to death constantly and you're constantly cold." "When the Legion was created in the early 1800's, it quickly gained a reputation as a band of gritty loners and rebels molded together into a single warrior unit." "They fought around the world from Mexico to Morocco." "Along the way they developed a fierce pride and a set of grim traditions." "One is known as "March or Die."" "When the Legion was in the desert they would march places together and if you lagged behind." "There were always rebels hiding, watching your every movement, waiting to kill that lone, weak person." "So, if you didn't march, you died." "Soon enough, some are desperate to stop." "A handful desert every year." "Those caught may suffer beatings and imprisonment." "The Legion's history of brutality is well documented," "but also well hidden." "It's about teamwork, an esprit de corps to create the kind of soldiers who'll stick together" "in the face of anything." "The Legion has a motto, "Legio Patrio Nostra"" "the legion is our homeland." "You give up all your ties to everything else and you swear allegiance to the Legion" "The force of the Legion is that we are all here united for the same cause, different cultures, different traditions, different religions, different colors and different mentalities." "Instead of fragmenting the unit, their diversity forges a bond that keeps them together." "After a while nationalities fade away." "The first month you're an American, but after a while once we get to know your comrades and then that fades away." "You're no longer an American." "Since the legion has a hundred odd nationalities serving, it can draw on the experience of just about every nation in the world." "So rather than having a unique way of doing things, the Legion can provide a hundred different ways of doing things." "Another force bonds the soldiers together is language." "French is the only language every recruit speaks." "Many arrive not knowing a single word." "He simply showed up at the door wanting to be a Legionnaire." "He's Mongolian and, of course, they have a totally different alphabet and culture." "We took him in just like the others, but, of course, it's hard because we've never had a Mongolian and our two languages are so different." "When you first join the Foreign Legion it's a jungle." "You've got a, a very, very bad level of French." "The guys have got two months of service in the army or in the foreign legion." "It's normal, they're not gonna speak the language." "The Legion makes sure you learn." "One way or another." "You learn fast or you get your head kicked in." "It starts off and they're really reasonably lenient." "If you don't understand things they take into account that you've only been there for a short period of time, but the longer you're there, the more they expect you to know." "And if you don't get with the program fast, it can get quite painful." "After a few weeks, a new devotion sets in." "A devotion to the Legion itself, above all else." "1962, after a bloody decade of war," "France reluctantly grants independence to Algeria, long a French territory and a Legion battlefield." "Forced to leave thousands of Legionnaire graves behind them, the Legion felt betrayed and set in motion a coup d'etat." "Their plan, to assassinate French President Charles De Gaulle." "A Legionnaire sniper was chosen and sent to Paris." "Ultimately the plot failed." "Some speculate that it was foiled when De Gaulle's route was changed at the last minute." "But the Legion suffered irreparable damage." "The French government acted to ensure such an insurrection could never be repeated." "The Elite First Parachute Regiment was disbanded, and another created in its place." "It was moved offshore, far from the seat of government, but well within the sights of the French Army." "They realized that the Legion itself as an independent army could be very dangerous to the French government." "So what they did was they brought it under the auspices of the French Army itself, whereas prior to that the Legion was totally independent." "Today's recruits enter a Legion far different than that of a half century ago." "It's very important to keep the Legionnaires training all the time, you keep them busy because we are, we are used to saying that a Legionnaire who is not working is a Legionnaire able to, to do mistakes." "Discipline, dedication, and loyalty are the orderof the day." "Orders flow from French offiicers to foreign legionnaire without question." "In one way it is easier to control in the French Foreign Legion for the chief because you know that you give an order and you will be obeyed." "When a guy asks to move a mountain, the colonel turns around and says all right, let's move it out, we will do it because he said to do it." "It's not, it's not blind brain washing." "It's that he says it can be done." "Well, okay, fine." "It can be done." "Recruits are taught to ignore the political or moral implications of their mission." "Where the government decides to send you, that's where they send you." "If you start to toss back and forth." "Well, politically this is wrong, then you think twice about fulfilling your mission." "Then you lose that edge that you had." "They're looking for a family." "They are looking for a, a place where they have a specific job where they get orders where they don't have to, to think," "where they just have to obey." "And they are looking for some kind of security in this new place they have chosen for their life." "For those who keep going, a proud moment awaits at the finish line." "After one month of basic training, the recruits are considered Legionnaires," "fit to wear the Kepi Blanc, the Legion's trademark white hat." "It's a proud feeling when you put on the white hat and it's an exclusive club, very exclusive club." "Very few people wear them." "Once you become a Legionnaire after that one-month period of time, then the training really starts." "Then they can get tough because you've shown you can make it through that first bit of training in the basic indoctrination." "Beyond that, then they have to teach you everything that's involved in being a Legionnaire from day to day." "It's all in preparation for what lies ahead as they move into the real world with real battles," "in some of the most unforgiving conditions on Earth." "For almost two centuries, the desert has been a battleground for the French Foreign Legion." "Chad, Tunisia, Morocco, the great garrisons of the African dunes." "Once Legionnaires pass their four months of basic training, they may wind up here, Djibouti, one of the hottest countries on Earth." "The thing about Djibouti is it's so far away from what we consider to be the conventional world." "You're away from the eyes of anybody." "Anything can happen." "Do you follow orders?" "Because if you don't, you can disappear." "Perched on the Horn of Africa, this former French territory is a mere fraction the size of France with one-hundredth the population." "But it's where the action is." "Captain Philippe DeLapelle commands a Legion unit isolated in the desert." "It is a very good place for us because it is close from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, so places which are quite dangerous." "The Legion has come at the request of the Djibouti government to guard the borders and thwart terrorists looking for a new home." "It's diffiicult, dangerous work." "Out here, they have a saying..." "Only three things can live in this desert, snakes," "scorpions, and French Legionnaires." "To learn how to survive in these extreme conditions, new Legionnaires hit the beach at Arta-plage" "the desert training center, home to the Legion's one-month graduate course of the sands." "I think training in the desert is very important for us." "The French soldiers are numerous in Africa and we have to know the specific conditions of thefighting in deserts." "It's a very good school for us to be here in Djibouti." "Early each morning, Legionnaires like Volf Dren awake for desert commando training." "I'm expecting a physical effort." "I want to find out how much I am capable, mentally and physically and, of course, I am searching of adventure." "Even at 6:00 a.m., the mercury climbs above 100 degrees." "Reared on the ski slopes of Slovenia, he's never tackled conditions like this before." "He's been kept awake for the past 36 hours." "He paddled all night, then did a forced march until 4:00 a.m." "It is diffiicult to prepare for a challenge like this." "It's one time." "It's the last time I hope." "Legionnaires pride themselves on their camaraderie, but they also learn to function as an army of one." "Like all elite units, they master hand to hand combat using whatever's available." "The subtleties of a knife and the garrote." "We're not special force." "I think that is where we have an advantage." "It's not exactly training." "It's specifically knowing how to do things." "The Legion has something else, a certain capability to withstand hardship and duress." "The Legion is self-suffiicient anywhere." "The American military when they go in, if they don't have it with them, they're at a loss." "We're so used to dealing with, making do with nothing that we take what we need, water and ammo." "Time and again the Legionnaires have tested their capacity to survive against all odds." "1954 Indochina." "After an epic 56-day siege," "Legionnaires surrender at Dien Bien Phu." "It's the beginning of the end for the French in southeast Asia." "After nearly a decade of war, 10,000 Legionnaires have perished." "But for those who fought on against overwhelming odds, it was a part of something ingrained into every Legionnaire the notion they would rather die than surrender." "He wants to give absolutely everything to the Legion." "In the worst battle situations, that's where a Legionnaire truly shows himself." "In the last century, over 30,000 Legionnaires have died in combat, a casualty rate of one in ten." "This is the mainstay of their grim legacy." "A Legionnaire knows that one day or another without wishing it, he may not come back from a mission." "I think that they all have this understanding." "There's a famous French general, General Negrier who said," ""Vous etes Legionnaire pour mourir, et je vous envoie la ou I'on meurt."" ""You're a Legionnaire to die." "I'll send you where you can die."" "When you join the Legion, death is just another one of those things that happens." "It's accepted." "You've got to be aware of you could go to another country and fight and die for a different country," "and for me that was a, a chance I'm willing to take." "In an Era of burgeoning civil war, the Legion is more active than ever" "There is always the chance that we will be called, into as is happening now in Afghanistan." "We've already operated in Kosovo." "There's a chance that we might be called into Macedonia." "Our company has already operated in Chad and the Legion throughout its history has allways operated in any hotspot in the world." "With its global reach, the Legion once again came under attack as the enforcer of French colonialism." "Algeria in the 1960's was the low point." "Desperate for independence, Algerian freedom fighters faced off against the Legion." "For years the battle raged." "Thousands on both sides died." "In the end, the Legion was not only defeated, but denounced for its brutality." "Not everything is peaches and cream." "The world is a rough place for a lot of people." "Just because things are cushy here in America for most people doesn't mean that that's what they are elsewhere in the world." "When you have a jungle out there, sometimes somebody's got to go in and keep things in order" "and it's not always easy to keep things in order." "Sometimes certain measures have to be taken." "The Legion continues to play a major role in supporting" "French interests around the world." "The Legion is always doing something somewhere." "Right now, there are probably half a dozen operations going on in the world involving Legionnaires that you'll probably never hear about." "Places like South America." "Where Legionnaires comes face to face with the hidden dangers of the Amazon." "Dawn in French Guyana." "An ocean away from the Eiffel Tower, a little piece of France in the jungles of the Amazon." "Sunrise reveals the tranquil beauty of this wilderness." "And something else." "This is Camp Zutts, jungle training, Foreign Legion style." "Armies from around the world come here to train." "Only the Legionnaires keep coming back" "Fergal Keating is a jungle warfare specialist, nearing the end of his second five-year contract." "He's come here to pass on all he knows about survival and combat under extreme conditions." "How hot is it here in the jungle at the center?" "It will depend on the attitude of the student, if he's strong, strong minded." "The jungle is where the strong become weak and the weak become strong." "It's a very good test of character, character builder." "As in real combat, there's no safety net here." "Accidents are just another part of Legionnaire life." "If you train hard, there are a few casualties." "It's a real risk and if you die, well that's one of those unfortunate aspects of training." "We send the Legionnaires out into the jungle to live, survive, and fight in this environment." "Basically they will have to live off the land." "We'll put them, more or less, through a tough time, but we won't really annihilate them if you like." "The jungle itself will take care of that." "The thing that makes a Legionnaire tougher than any other soldier in the world is it's a mental toughness." "You have to be able to deal with harsh situations, crude surroundings." "Everything being tough and you have to have the attitude that you're gonna be tougher." "Malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, just a few of the natural hazards." "Major Marc Oberti is a Legion doctor assigned to the regimen in French Guyana." "The Amazonian jungle is a place where there are sicknesses and diseases that aren't even in medical journals." "They are so rare that we don't even have names for them." "They haven't been documented because man doesn't often go that deeply into this jungle." "There's also the danger of snake, scorpion, and spider bites." "But here, Legionnaires like Bernard Raubenheimer learn to be at home." "The British and the Americans started doing this sort ofjungle penetration during the Second World War" "and I think we must be one of the last military units that keeps up this trade of being able to send a platoon into a jungle completely autonomously for two, three, four weeks." "I guess about as we are at the moment we could survive." "We've got enough food and ammunition for perhaps 48 hours in the jungle." "Out here, the Legion has two missions, to protect this French territory against smuggling and drug running, and to guard the European space agency's Ariane Rocket Program." "From the ever increasing threat of terrorism." "Our company, in particular, has the ability to go pretty well anywhere in the jungle." "So the regiment has a, a serious role in guarding the site and just keeping a military presence." "As recent events have shown us, terrorists could attack anywhere." "The jungle has a way of holding on to people." "As the offiicers like to say," ""The Legionnaire may leave Guyana, but Guyana will never leave the Legionnaire." "He will get out of the jungle after three weeks of an operation." "He will be very, he will be a changed man." "Just to say that." "He will be a very changed man." "If there's an elite unit of the French Foreign Legion it's the paratroopers who make up the Airborne's Second Regiment." "Based on the island of Corsica, just off the coast of southern France, these men are the best the Legion has to offer." "Here at Camp Raffalli, 1100 Legionnaires and 60 French offiicers hone their skills to a fighting edge." "Their reward, the top combat assignments in the Legion." "There's nobody in the regiment who doesn't jump." "Everybody has to jump." "If you're a clerk." "If you're a cook." "It doesn't matter what you do." "You still jump." "They jump in all kinds of conditions and terrain, even in full gear, at night, far out to sea." "Paddy Malone has been at it with the Legion for the past 18 years." "Not an easy life." "It's not you know it's not a push over thing." "I'd say like, we're just soldiers, professional soldiers trained to do a professional job." "The action begins at 15,000 feet, and the training ensures they'll be ready when the real battles come." "With hundreds ofjumps to their credit they're the masters of free fall." "I would compare us to any, any other regiment in the world." "We can keep up with them without any problem." "Rapid insertion is the backbone of Special Operations, like those conducted in the world's war on terror." "Small commando units made up of seven-man teams race against the clock." "From insertion to extraction, they have only 11 minutes to complete their mission." "The key is to be swift silent, and deadly." "One of our strongest points is we can go in any, on any situation and we always come out, you know we always come out on top." "We can adapt to any situation, anything." "Or go into the mountains, or go in the pier." "We don't care." "Just go in there and get it done." "Go in there and get the job done to prove our reputation, to prove that we are what we are and we can do what we do, you know?" "That we are as good as people say we are." "Today's Legionnaire may be technologically superior to his predecessor, but both share a common origin." "Inside the Legionnaires are the same they were 50 or 100 years ago." "When they join they, they learn to, to build an armor." "Outside they are really strong men, good warriors... very disciplined." "They look impressive." "But each of them has a hidden face." "No matter their reason for joining, their willingness to face death makes them the perfect soldiers." "When he enlists, a Legionnaire puts his fate in his commander's hands, no questions asked." "If we get sent somewhere to fight either we finish it, or we stay." "Basically, the French Army's got no scruples whatsoever to send us to places where you die" "because we're foreigners." "Serving under the banner of the United Nations hasn't thrown off their stride." "In 1993 we were in Sarajevo." "We had to wear the beret blue." "There was a big, big discussion, should the Foreign Legion wear a beret blue." "If you get sent to do that particularjob, to fill in that particular task, the colorof the beret doesn't matter." "For us it's, it comes, it comes within." "What will never change is the way Legionnaires and the Legion see each other." "I think the Legion will always remain a home for some people who had troubles in their life and who wants to find something hard to, to realize themselves." "That's what makes the Legion unique." "When you've got a bunch of guys that have been living, live together for five years, they get to know each other you know." "They know how when not to push and when to push." "And then give the guy a smack in the head like you know and not to do it and the guys got his ups and his down you know?" "It's like a family you know." "After five years, a Legionnaire's service ends." "Chances are he's gone through combat." "If so, odds are one in ten he didn't make it out alive." "If he survives combat and serves out his contract, he's free to leave." "Before he does, he has a choice, take back his old identity or keep his Legionnaire name with a new French passport." "Thomas Kadish decided to go back to his old self." "With his identity restored, he returned home and eventually married," "but his years of service in the Legion took their toll." "Where you served for five years under a different name, suddenly you become once again the person you were before you began." "Can you go back to your life?" "Can you go back to who you were when you joined?" "You're still the same person, but you're not." "For those who choose to stay, the Legion can become a home they never leave." "And after a lifetime of adventure, they retire toDomaine D'Anjou, a chateau in southern France where the Legion looks after its own." "They owe their allegiance not to a king, not to a constitution, to the organization." "They are probably the, the ultimate builders, the penultimate builders of this thing called unit cohesion." "At the end of Operation Desert Storm, the Legion awarded U.S. General" "Norman Schwarzkopf one of its highest honors." "When they made me a member of the Legion, they gave me a card with a telephone number on it." "Said, "if you are anywhere in the world and you get in trouble, call this number and we will come to your aid."" "Revered by many, condemned by others, the French Foreign Legion is unlike any other fighting force in the world." "An army within an army a depository for the world's misfits," "adventurers, and romantics." "Legionnaires live by a code of honor based on discipline, solidarity, and respect." "They fight for France, but swear allegiance only to each other." "They're holdovers from a simpler time." "Warriors first, countrymen last, fighting together until the bitter end."