A French Soldier's View of US Soldiers in Afghanistan

[MattClyde]

Originally Posted by Mr Blue Sky

Interesting.

As an accompanying piece you might like to read this: Working with the French Army. An American soldiers view

Wow that was a very good read. Great to read something positive about the French Military, the Italians on the other hand...

[victimofGM]

Originally Posted by masonbauknight

Having lived and studied in France for three years, this article doesn't surprise me that much. Like Britain, France is a much more martial country than other European nations like Germany or Austria. France's military is revered by most people in France. While the French government and people did oppose US involvement in the second Iraq War, they (correctly) saw it as a mistake based on sketchy data from the George W. Bush administration. But France totally supported intervention by George H.W. Bush in the FIRST Iraq war, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, and the French military were part of that international effort.

I really liked the part of the article where it says "Americans don't speak English" and have a "strong accent" -- but it's the French who have a very thick accent in English. Native speakers of English (Americans, Brits, Aussies) who work together understand each other's accent fine, even a "nonstandard" regional accent like that of Glasgow (Scotland), Darwin (Northern Territory, Australia), or Meridian (Mississippi, USA). French accents are nonnative and are hard for many English-speakers to comprehend -- especially given that the typical French soldier speaks halting English. A few American guys would probably ask the French guy to write his words down on paper.

They don't like other forms of the French language either. My dad speaks fluent Cajun French. Though they and my dad could communicate, they still didn't care for his French.

[AuburnAL]

Europeans learn British English often including the slang which does not necessarily ensure that you can easily communicate with Americans. Even trying to ask something simple like, "Where is the truck?" becomes a bewildering exercise if both sides don't know truck and lorry mean the same thing.

[Taiko]

Originally Posted by Southern man

" 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"

Everytime I am in the airport and I see some GI's, I am always amazed and how much bigger these kids are than the soldiers of my era. In the 50's we would look like wimps compared to todays GI.

From the French writer's perspective it was probably even more pronounced because he was looking at infantrymen. For the first time in a long time in a long term conflict the basic infantryman was not a draftee but a double volunteer. He wanted infantry and many probably wished for Ranger also. Besides some artillery and tank crews being dismounted all of those troops he is seeing wanted it. They were not clerk typist forced into a replacement pool of late WWII or a Forest Gump, well he was a football star at Alabama Vietnam draftee who was forced in to fill the ranks

[Almeida93]

How tall is the average American. Soldier. What about. The french?

[Rayug]

I was attached to the French Foreign Legion for the ground war portion of Desert Storm. They were quite the cast of characters, and I certainly got the feeling that they viewed themselves as expendable. They were treated very well and some of the better meals we had (fresh veggies and fruit) was with them. This was an armored unit, with the AMX-10 and support vehicles. They performed well, my home division was 3rd infantry division which was in Germany at the time and they were comparable to us in terms of training readiness.