By TIM WATKIN
The Foreign Legion is a creation only the French could have crafted. They recruit the world's misfits, train them to kill and die, then turn their story into a romance.
These soldiers of an adopted flag sign up to a simple but death-inviting code of conduct: complete the mission at all costs, never abandon your wounded or dead, and never surrender your arms. In return they receive the promise that they will never be alone again. They will always be part of the brotherhood.
The legionnaire's life is explored in Legion of the Damned (Sunday, 8.35 pm, Prime), one of Prime's seemingly endless supply of war docos. Following The Damned is The Final Battle for Yugoslavia. then Korea: The Unknown War. Battles back to back to back.
The Legion seems an anachronism in the 21st century, but still 100 young men a week arrive in Marseilles from all over the world to join France's army of foreigners. As one soldier says, they are "a bunch of weirdos."
"If you get a guy who's got his head together, he don't need us." Or as another says, "You give your body to the Legion and they will protect you from yourself."
They come because they want adventure, they have money problems, they are minor criminals wanting to avoid prison, or because of "romantic failure." The Legion is their last chance. They leave their past behind. They take a new name. The Legion will deny any knowledge of them should anyone come looking and will rebuild them as new men.
The third volunteer signs up for a minimum of five years, joining 8500 serving soldiers and 36,000 fallen comrades. Their legend, embodied in Percival Wren's Beau Geste, is carefully protected. The Legion employs writers, photographers and artists full-time, and retired legionnaires make statues and memorabilia celebrating the Legion's glory.
One French officer, rich in Legion romance, says his men obey his orders in exchange for love. He sees the legionnaires as similar to the monks of the middle ages, keeping a spirit of brotherhood and courage alive in a shallow, materialistic world.
"We are a bit out of time and space. You realise that we are in a sort of monastery," he explains.
Except that these soldier monks kill rather than pray for a living.
TV: Soldiers of fortune
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