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One French Soldier’s Opinion of American Troops
French military prowess is often mocked, especially by American hawks such as myself. It’s fun to ridicule the “cheese-eating surrender monkey” stereotype, but quite unfair to judge Gallic martial history on their quick collapse in the Second World War. All in all, the Frogs have a decent track record in eliminating baddies.
This stereotype is also a reaction to the knee-jerk disdain the French show for U.S. culture and policy. It’s nothing personal, America; the French hold everyone in contempt.
Being deployed with the American soldier changes one’s perspective. A French ISAF fighter was stationed with U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Wes O’Donnell, founder of WarriorLodge.com translated the remarks which were originally printed as a French editorial:
They have a terribly strong American accent – from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever State they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other. 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.
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. Here we discover America as it is often depicted: their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley.
And combat? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all – always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks: they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting: they just charge! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later – which cuts any pussyfooting short.Honor, motherland – everything here reminds of that: the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner.
O’Donnell weighs in with his perspective as an American warrior:
Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from Chant Pagan: ‘If your officer’s dead and the sergeants look white/remember it’s ruin to run from a fight./ So take open order, lie down, sit tight/ And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact, is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers. ‘In the absence of orders, take a defensive position.’ Indeed, virtually every army in the world. The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other ‘incident’, the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.
This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly surprising. No wonder is surprises the hell out of our enemies.)
I want to keep quoting the piece, but I’ve probably quoted too much. Visit Warrior Lodge to read the whole thing. But to naysayers who insist America’s best days are behind it, I’ll quote O’Donnell’s closing line: “This is ‘The Greatest Generation’ of soldiers. They may never be equalled.”
Published in General
When talking about World War II, it should be remembered that the Soviet Army took and inflicted the most casualties of that war.
Of course we should remember our own. We fought that war more efficiently than the Soviets, and we also provided them a lot of equipment to fight it.
With the Civil War, both sides were citizen soldiers (or not so citizen; there were Irish immigrants in the Union side who had just gotten off the boat). The Union overwhelmed the Confederacy with sheer numbers. That especially was U.S. Grant’s strategy.
That explains why it “turned me on”. The thought of all those magnificent men in all that battle gear charging into the frae is exciting.
No wonder my mother always had such a high opinion of Americans. She used to tell me, “If you want something done, call in the Americans!”
To a point this is true, but the Russian soldiers did actually get better as the war progressed. The Ruskies got quite clever and brutal, for instance, at dealing with fortifications and rapidly clearing dug-in positions.
A. Sparks – if the Russian policies in WWII had been similar to our policies in the wars of the 21st century I doubt very much we would have had an East Germany. My point is, without effective policies, effective forces can succeed tactically but not strategically
Thank you sir.
17 battalions total were chewed up in Dien Bien Phu. They were hardly all Legion. Some rather spectacular fighting was done by the paras.
I admit it is fun to poke at the Frogs, and especially as they have more than an acceptable amount of arrogance. Still, it does not really mean they aren’t good soldiers. They have proven their mettle in many places over time.
I know in my bones American soldiers are the best in the world. It’s nice to hear from others once in a while.
Great post!
You would think that. But it turns out not to be true. Men, unless conditioned to kill will stand there and purposely miss. But once you turn your back, that inhibition goes away.
It has something to do with species not killing itself. And with the OTHER two responses besides fight & fright. In an intraspecies fight, there is also (almost exclusively) posture & submission. So on average a species “fights” by posturing. The loser then submits. Rarely does it go to killing.
Rattlesnakes are pretty well known to bite pretty much anything. But not another rattlesnake. They will wrestle, but no fangs.
The French also make some great guns. Not played with a FAMAS, but their older MAS 49/56 was a marvelous weapon, much better handling than many of its contemporaries.
AND now we can start with all the “never fired, dropped once” jokes. :-)))
I question your use of the word “average” here. All the talking heads view it with disdain, yes. But would you say that our politicians and media represent the “average” American?
“While I was doing this this American woman has walked in and decided to help… because that’s what American people do!” -Adam Hills
Loved this comment, and yes for more than just a few of us here on Ricochet “we were soldiers once, and young.” Not complaining nor whining here (for surely of I did Devereaux would give me a richly deserved bitch slap) but merely observing – there does seem to be quite a bit of “but what have you done for me lately” with most of the American public.
Despite the reputation, the French Army is a pretty impressive organization. I would argue that it’s the second most effective army in the world. It’s biggest problem is that it’s directed by French politicians.
They have a robust force structure, they are well equipped, and good, if overly bureaucratic command doctrines. If you look at the conflicts in which they participate where they really care (ie. not Afghanistan), they perform well. Yes, these are typically colonial policing operations, but you could argue that the last one of these that the US did well was Panama. Their big problem is that they have a very keen sense of what really matters to France, and will only do the minimum required of alliance if a particular effort is not dead-on within that area.
FWIW, I would suggest that in a Paul-ian foreign policy, the US military would start looking a lot more like the French.
(note: in full disclosure, I say this being a graduate of their reserve senior staff college… but I would argue that this allows me to see the good and the bad)
More efective than the British Army, United States Army, or Israeli Army? With all due respect, I don’t think so.
For that matter, Australia and South Korea have pretty effective armies, but I do not know where they would rank relative to France.
Seawriter
I very much doubt Paul would change the nature of our military much. What you would probably see is a shift in active/reserve ratios, but that has been going on for a long time.
I would expect with Paul a further shift of Army combat power to the reserves/Guard. That, in many ways, is actually being true to the nature of this nation, which has mostly been a nation that fights in defense. We can argue until the cows come home the defensive nature of the Cold War, but it’s mostly over. We are left with a threat from islam, which we have as yet not addressed frontally, but sooner or later we will have to.
Meanwhile we have already pulled back from permanent, costly, fixed bases around the world to prepositioned material and regular joint exercises with the host nation’s military to work those places. However, I hardly expect any of our SpecOps assets to wither, and at some point a president will discover that his quickest way to project power will STILL be the Marine Corps and Navy.
Prior to Vietnam, the Air Force had some interesting views about future warfare … the main purpose of tactical aircraft (fighters) was to intercept Russian bombers, dogfighting was obsolete, there would be no more conventional wars. So AIMs (sparrow and sidewinder) were designed to be used from straight and level at 1g and the F-4 originally didn’t have a gun – it would all be BVR.
The first rule of engagement for air-to-air combat was the pilot must first visually identify the MiG. So much for the obsolete concept of dogfighting. This also meant that AIMs were often fired under heavy maneuvering and high g’s and most didn’t work. The F-4 eventually got a gun.
@Jetstream – Wasn’t that same doctrine also why the early F4 was such a pig to fly too? As I understood, the early F4 was just a big engine with too tiny wings – no plans for any real maneuvering.
Not as effective as the US Army, but yes, more effective than the British or Israeli armies. In both of those cases, it’s due to scale, and breath/ capabilities of their equipment. The British Army is a shadow of its former self (less than 25% of the size of force that existed in the 80’s), and while still capable at the unit level, they have simply shrunk too much. Same deal with Australia and my own Canadian army: highly capable, but simply too small to compare. Man for man, give me a Commonwealth unit every time; there’s just not enough of them.
As for the Israelis, it’s a lot closer, given that their army is battle hardened in a way that few others really are. But, they’re still only about 2/3 of the size of the French Army.
You might have a point with India, South Korea, or China for that matter, just due to size: hard to judge though, and I don’t have very good exposure to their practices to make a great assessment.
Hey skip, not sure what you mean by pig. The F-4 had two engines, the superb GE J79. The C and D models were sometimes referred to as hard wing because of the way air flowed over them at high angles of attack. They had a challenging aerodynamic characteristic called adverse yaw which was thought to be the cause of several combat losses. To address the adverse yaw problem, leading edge slats were added to the E model – an internal gun was also added (although the D model had an external gun).
The F-4 had maneuvering advantages against the MiGs at low altitudes. It wasn’t a good idea to try to maneuver against a MiG-21 at high altitudes.
In terms of a large engine and small wings, you might be thinking of the F-105. It was designed to deliver a nuclear bomb and I think was capable of cruising at Mach 1.2 – it could do 860 knots on the deck. A couple of times a flight of F-4’s on their way out of Dodge had the experience of an F-105 blowing their doors off on his way out of Dodge.
Going off of half-remembered quotations from a fighter documentary seen years ago. thanks for the clarification!
Maybe you were thinking of the F-111 Aardvark. Aardvark means “earth pig” in Afrikaans.
South Korea is much like SPare described France; They are very good at one thing: defending South Korea.
Semper Fi
Well said, Devereaux.
Yes. We did what we enlisted to do, act like Marines when it hit the fan. It was hellish but I knew I wasn’t going to the beach when I enlisted. By the time graduation came from boot camp, when I knew that the drill instructors could not drive me out, I reveled in the privilege of being a Marine. I’ve never looked back.
The seven month tour? I heard of it but have no experience of it. I did 13 in Nam, arriving for Tet. Chinese New Year had unexpected explosions that year. We had unexpected visitors. The door was not opened for them.. We did what we were supposed to do, what we were trained to do.
One of my grandsons graduated from MCRD last year. I wrote him in boot camp to remind him that others had trod this particular path, successfully. I think he is a bit better and maybe a bit braver then me. I keep him in my prayers.
I remember meeting an old Marine who questioned the Marines of my generation. We did what they did, but I had an M14 (not a Mattel) but not a Springfield 03 or a Garand. It did not matter.
I have assumed that this generation of Marines is doing what we did and what they did. What Marines do when things go sideways. My grandson is doing what I did, but in a different place and time.
Now I am writing to him in a war zone, so that he knows that other Marines have trod this path as well, and that he knows one of them pretty well.
I am not only writing my grandson, I am writing a younger brother in the Marines Corps.
Some of you who read this will know Marines or soldiers inhabiting bad places. Write them. They need to know that there is another place when things are relatively normal. They need your support.
Welcome home, brother.
The 7 month tours are the tours in the sandbox. They allow far better rest and dealing with combat stress. You and I did the 13 monthers., which was the standard in RVN. I came after you, so I got to mess with the seriously flawed M16. <sigh>
If I remember correctly, during the Viet Nam era there were three Marine combat divisions (are there any other kind?) which rotated in and out. That means that if you were a Marine you had either just returned from Viet Nam, you were preparing to go to Viet Nam, or you were IN Viet Nam.
I did an enlistment in the USN and it was made clear to us early on that we were not supposed to like Marines. Don’t tell anybody, but most of us liked you anyway, even the barnacle-encrusted old CPOs.
Seemed 3MarDiv was permanently in Danang, up on Hill 328. 2MarDiv I think was at Lejune, and 1st at Pendleton. 4MarDiv was the reserves. Of course there were segments that were sent hither and yon.
WestPac was basically Vietnam. Indeed, I recollect the saying that you were a “state-sider” or a “WestPacer”. The former went by the rules and the latter simply got the job done by any means, sometimes even lawful. War teaches some hard lessons. To some.
If I remember correctly, and it has been decades and my memory might be suspect, but I believe that the 1st MarDiv was down south (in I Corp speak) and 3rd MarDiv was up north by the DMZ. I was in Dong Ha (up north by the D) when we got some of the big Russian rockets as incoming.
I believe it was the 3rd MarDiv sgt major who stuck his head out of the trench at the wrong time and paid for it with his life.
Being young I would duck as soon as I heard the mail being delivered, then wait for the distribution, and only then would I stick my head up and yell “over here.” (If that sounds like C3PO in Star Wars, it was accidental.)
Then I would once again attempt to dig my way further down until the next time I thought I could safely stick my head out and yell “over here.”
I ended up with company.
DT – I think you may be correct. I was with 1/4 when I arrived, then hospital, then Oki and 9th Marines, then back to 3/1 and finally 3/5. 1/4 ws based at Stud then, although earlier they were at Con Thien.
?You “liked” the 122’s, did you.
Up along Mutter’s Ridge I remember we always made a company pos about 1400, then sent out a platoon patrol, then moved the whole company a little before dark about 2-500m (which usually meant the next hill). So then I had to go see the captain about the next day’s activity, make my platoon orders, gather the SL’s and PS and give the next day’s order. THEN I could dig a hole and eat. Of course it was always dark by then, so you couldn’t heat the food. Digging your hole in the dark was another pleasure.
So about a week up there, and I get back from the captain’s meeting, … and my hole is dug and my stuff laid out! I was flabbergasted. Then a couple troopers came up and said that since I hadn’t TOLD THEM to dig it, and it appeared I was busy, they would help. I felt honoured.