It was preparation Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, a four-month sovereignty tour where we do the same thing in Calvi but on a much smaller island. My name was on the list to go surprisingly, but I still had a hundred stupid tasks to do every morning. Fascimiento’s compte rendus had double because I hadn’t managed to submit any because I was on guard 24h all Saturday night until Sunday evening. How was I supposed to compose immaculately written letters to the Captain for all my admissions of guilt while standing on the front gate of 2REP listening to the echoes of the music festival in the distance?

On the Monday morning, we were called into the corridor as usual at 6:00am, Caporal Fascimiento came out to ask me where his compte rendus were;

“I didn’t do it”, I responded. No point making excuses at this stage, the Caporal was aware that I would never be able to finish the tasks beset on me. He put his face next to mine in an almost homoerotic manner and started punching and kicking me in front of the entire section, the punches got harder and harder but nothing could break me, nothing would make me fall to his level. The Caporal was aware of that and that’s why they changed the strategy, every one is going to suffer because of Gaston, every one is going to turn against Gaston.

“If Gaston doesn’t complete his tasks by tomorrow morning, no one will have their weekend, we’ll all switch rooms, you will all do 500 push ups”, Fascimiento announced.

I went to my service of preparing parachutes at SREP, well-mannered people, guys from other companies working together, a sense of humour – it was refreshing and I got to rest a bit after lunch time. However, as soon as it was time to go back to my section, I felt a sickness in my stomach. I ate my dinner in one of the other compagnie clubs and drank a few beers to build some dutch courage before getting a beating, doing physical exercises and getting humiliated. I was reaching my limit and so were the Caporaux. I made it back in time for evening assembly where Caporal Panko stood there waiting for some trouble in the corridor, he already made me start doing push ups as soon as he laid eyes on me. My name was called out by the Caporal du Jour:

“Gaston!”,

“Presente Caporal”, I said in a loud assertive voice.

“Why do you shout?”, Caporal panko came up to me and smacked while I was in position, his finger went straight into my eye.

“Because I’m motivated”, I replied even louder.

“Why do you shout?”, Panko repeated, this time kicking me.

“Because I’m motivated”, I shouted louder.

Caporal Panko stood on top of me kicking me in the chest and into the ribs. As I was kicking him in the balls the Sergeant de Semaine came running up after hearing the shouting. Panko immediately got off me and finally I thought they’ve finally caught him in the act without me having to complain. I was told to wait inside the Bureau de Semaine while the Sergeant de Semaine did some questioning within the section. Officially, it’s illegal to hit people, the Caporaux are not permitted, however, at 2REP we had rules of our own, tradition was more important than the law of the land.

“Go wash your eye and come back to the office”, the sergeant de semaine said.

I washed my eye under the cold outdoor tap and returned to the bureau de semaine.

“I may need to go to the infirmerie to check out my eye, I may have an infection”, I said to the sergeant, he saw most of what happened so I believed he may sympathetic to my plight.

“Don’t be silly, the infirmerie is full of guys right now injured from today’s parachuting exercise”, the sergeant told me. It wasn’t my injury to my eye which was the concern, it was the scandal that could essentially break out as a result if anyone from higher command found out a Caporal attacked me while I was on the floor.

Every day that week was a new beating or a new threat. Others within the section, legionnaires that I considered my friends were previously telling me not to desert were now saying that I should go that same evening just to save their own skins. Every one was getting more and more annoyed by the Caporaux threats to the entire section, which was apparently due to my presence. On Thursday, we prepared for an airborne exercise to jump 400 metres with the EPC parachute, a 20kg backpack as well as the HK 416 rifle. When I reached the site of re-integration for the parachute covered in sweat, I received another blow to the head from another Sergeant for taking my helmet off prematurely. I realized that being around these men was more of a risk to my health than the nature of the job itself.

When I arrived back to the section after an afternoon of parading around, drinking beers and photo sessions to see off the departure of the Chef-de-section, Adjudant Pouville. It was all in good spirit until I returned to the section where Caporal Panko had ordered several legionnaires to start packing my things for my involuntary desertion that evening. I was told to hurry up and Panko punched me again in the eye. They threw all the army material into bin bags and gave me one of my bags to take with me, the rest they said they’ll throw over the fence at 22:00. Once of the premier class legionnaires, a Brasilian, who I shared a few evenings with drinking in the club in Calvi started screaming just as Caporal Fascimiento ordered that everyone start doing 500 push ups because of me. He grabbed me by the shirt and started hitting me lightly to show his outrage and what was going on. I finally understood what the word ‘sketch’ was, to do a bit of acting, theatre, a little play and to pretend to be something we weren’t essentially. Even people that complained of ‘sketch’ succumbed to playing it up to maximum at one point during their careers at 2REP.

I took my bags realizing that now the majority was not in my favour to stay anymore, it was the mob in control and not a couple of Caporaux trying to get me to leave. I walked downstairs with my backpack and as I was passing the bureau de semaine, a young lieutenant caught sight of me and asked me where I was going;

“I’m going to the resto”, I replied.

“Come into my office”, the lieutenant instructed.

The lieutenant was a St. Cyrian, career officer, and descendant of  one of the most well-known Generals in the French Army. For French officers, it was prestigious and highly regarded to take a secondment within 2REP, however, they weren’t exactly subject to the same kind of abuses that legionnaires had to endure in order to rise in ranks. He had already seen Dacier, Kokes and Dubrovsky go from his section and was now trying to thwart another desertion.

“You’re going to desert aren’t you?”, the lieutenant asked.

“Yes, well I’ve got no choice”, I replied.

The lieutenant stared at me directly in the eyes and said;

“You’re not going to desert, you’re going to stay in a corner and you’ll get through this, is that clear?”

The sergeant de semaine had called up the chef-de-section, security post as well as the military police to say there was an attempted desertion by a legionnaire under the name of ‘Gaston’. By now, almost the whole regiment was aware that I tried to desert and although it is highly encouraged at the section level, it is not permitted and the regiment has a duty to prevent it. As soon as somebody deserts, there’s a long process of informing the Gendarme and filing the paperwork, but it’s no way as long as formally asking to go civil and no where near as messy because the person starts talking to other members of the Legion. If there has been a wrong-doing, it’s members of the compagnie, the Caporaux and Sergeants that could be sanctioned. The officers was getting anxious about what they should do with me, let vicious human nature take its course or find a way out. I just had to ‘stay in the corner’ until I got my get out of jail free card.

That night I slept in another room away from Caporal Panko. When he saw me in the morning he said I was going to get a beating again from the whole section. We prepared for another parade to see off the departure of the Captain. It was another long day of regimental soldier duties, preparing for the festivities, drinking beer and carrying our weapons in a totally ceremonial fashion. As soon as we finished dismantling the tent for the food and drinks on offer for the whole compagnie and the top brass of the regiment, I returned to the section to receive another coordinated attack. Caporal Panko was ever more determined to get me out, he made it his ambition, a sort of personal objective to do this. Perhaps he had made a bet with his colleagues that he was going to succeed, as I mentioned before, to get someone to desert is regarded as a badge of honour among Caporaux and some Sergeants.

“You’ve got 15 minutes to take your shit and leave”, Panko said.

It was like déjà-vu, only 24 hours had passed since Panko said the same thing. I started packing my affairs and pulled out the original Brevet Parachutiste to put within my belongings. There were some things I wasn’t prepared to leave behind or throw away.

“Give me that so I can burn it”.

“No, it’s mine, you can’t have it”, I replied.

“Are you disobeying orders?”, Panko came close to tell me with his fists clenched again. He was skinny, smaller and weaker than me, but he always chose to fight me while surrounded by his fellow Caporaux from the section.

Panko punched me again and this time I was no passive duck. To reciprocate, I smacked him hard enough for him to fly across the room and fall over one of the beds. Within 2 seconds I had about 3 caporaux on top of me, one of them gave me repeated blows to the ribs another a mark to my face. Panko ordered from the other legionnaires to take the Brevet from my pocket. I had at least 6 guys on top of me holding my arms, one Caporal tried to put a sock in my mouth to avoid making noise within the section. About 20 minutes into the fight the door flew open again, it was Caporal-chef Dacu, topless and just wearing a pair of shorts brandishing his full body tattoos and intense stare at the situation. Everybody stopped and looked up;

“6 guys on 1, this is not fair, Gaston come with me”, Dacu told me.

I got up with an extreme pain to my ribs and sat in the bureau de semaine until Caporal-chef Dacu put me on the phone to Major Morrison. I heard a cockney voice on the line and he simply asked;

“Do you want to stay in the Legion?”.

“Yes Major”.

“OK you should change regiment then, tonight you will stay in the citadel with the military police”. I stayed in the citadel for one night and was immediately disaffected from the 2^eme compagnie from the new Captain on his first day in office. I was in severe pain but extremely satisfied with the result. Within a few days I was on the plane back to Marseille where I was due for a rapport with the chef-de-corps to change regiment. I asked for the 3eme Regiment Etranger de Infanterie in Guyane, South America and I got my first choice. I was praised for my ‘good results’ in Castelnaudary and had my incidents in my favour due to the high rate of desertions within the compagnie. The Commandant was obviously displeased to hear about some of the highest-ranking legionnaires desert from 2REP. The following day, the Gestapo invited me for an interview with respect to the deserters and myself. I wrote a written statement and spent the following weeks enjoying life living in Marseille. All that will drastically change as I take my train to airport in Paris for a direct flight to Cayenne. 3 more years in the legion, in the jungle, more stories and more adventures.

We climbed Monte Cinto, the tallest mountain chain in Corsica at 2,706m, after the 3^rd day of marching around other sizable mountains within the region. As soon as we climbed one mountain with our packs, descended by rope, ran down unstable cliffsides covered in loose volcanic rocks we simply marched on at the same rapid pace and climbed another.

There was no end in sight to the physical demands of the marches. If we didn’t keep up we’d get shouted at or a get a kick from Caporal Vykov who bashed me multiple times on the head on the way back from a march for not keeping up with the group.

“Depeche-toi”, Caporal Vykov shouted behind me.

I wasn’t sure he was talking to me so I tried to hurry up a bit but it wasn’t good enough. When I reached the assembly point, Caporal Vykov shouted at me while bashing his fists against my helmet after every word.

“You… listen… to… what… I… say…, you hear, I’m gonna fuck… you up, don’t fucking… do that, when I say hurry…, you fucking hurry…”.

My brain rattled in the helmet like a can and again I was named and shamed.

On the second day of our final march of the G20 just before the devils eye, we stopped at the refuge to buy some soft drinks, buy sandwiches and eat our rations.  As an American colleague, Berret, just finished eating his tinned meat, he got caught red-handed putting his rations tin in the recycling unit provided by the refuge.

“Only use the bins for the drinks and food provided by the refuge, all your own rubbish shall be taken with you in your bags, if I see another fuck up you’re all going to put stones in your bags to carry”, Sergeant Nitco told us all sitting exhausted after completing one of the mountains.

Sometimes, with the exhaustion, heat and altitude the brain doesn’t function very well. A few moments later, Bensaeh got up to take a piss in the toilet without his rifle. The sergeant noticed this seemingly massive infringement of the fundamental rule ‘always keep your weapon with you’.

“That’s it, everybody find one large rock and put it in your bags”.

We were all swearing under our breaths and filled our bags with stones. During this time I tried to clean up the mess but couldn’t differentiate between the products bought at the refuge shop and our rations. I put everything together to be separated next to the bin and made my way to the recycling units.

“Stop right there”, a different Caporal from another compagnie undertaking the stage decided to exercise his authority with respect to waste management.

“What’s in your bin bag? No rubbish of our own I hope?”.

“No Caporal”, I replied.

The ambitious Caporal didn’t take my word for it and so came to inspect the contents of my bin.

“What’s this then?”, the caporal screamed and pulled out a crushed tin of tuna rations amidst the cans of Coca-Cola in the bag. He threw a punch at my torso and I said.

“OK, OK, no need to make a drama, I didn’t see it”, I tried to diffuse another scandal in front of the group again but it was too late. The Caporal was fuming mad and now the sergeant got involved.

“You listen to the Caporal”, Nitco asserted.

Word got out about the rubbish scandal to the other Caporaux from the other groups. We were on our way down from the refuge and every Caporal had something to say ‘wait till you get back to regiment and you’ll desert on the first night’, ‘I can’t believe you did that’ and ‘how dare you disobey orders, disrespect a Caporal etc’. I wasn’t making any friends among my superiors. Caporal Vykov designated that I carry the UT2000 again up Monte Cinto the following day together with 2 extra hours of guard duty before the ascent.

Monte Cinto was a spectacular and exhausting experience. As the name suggests, it is composed of 5 peaks, you go up one, go down and climb another one, then run down a dangerously steep mountain side with Caporal Vykov behind with his flying kicks and clenched fists making the descent all the more dangerous. I slipped and fell at least 6 times causing superficial grazes to my extremities. I was still fit enough to undergo the final test in the following days and complete the G20 parcour in 3 hours and 20 minutes. Others weren’t fit or motivated enough, Bensaeh went too slow and another Hungarian guy got lost apparently.  It was immediate failure for them. On the final day, I got pulled to the side by the Adjudant and told that I didn’t pass the stage due to technical faults while climbing. Everybody around was surprised because I finished the G20 parcours in good time, I wasn’t shocked at all, it was political and the chef-de-section just wanted me out.

Get out of jail card

We returned back to regiment completely exhausted but it wasn’t over until everything was re-integrated, the cords, the climbing shoes and boots, trousers and everything else. We were running around in the July heat doing heavy duty lifting work, moving large crates of armaments and materials. Furthermore, we had 3 parades to do in the next week, which meant that we had to parade around in the heat to celebrate the departure of our chef-de-section, Pouville, together with our Captain who was Commandant de Unité for the last two years. There was also the possibility to celebrate Bastille day on the 14^th July so we had to be prepared for that too in case we were selected. Apparently, there was no going out for legionnaires until we could show two pairs of tenue, two perfectly ironed shirts, trousers, perfectly white kepi, together with all the accessories required for the parade. I managed to show the Caporal du Jour my tenue, he was a somewhat relaxed South African, and said that I could go out to do some shopping before I was obliged to start guard 24 hours on the Saturday afternoon, but everything had to be ready by Sunday evening. I got the OK from him and left regiment while Caporal Panko was still sleeping on the bed next to me. It was the first time off outside regiment I had since my vacation, although it was only a few hours it felt like ecstasy and necessary because I needed to find a way to cure all my injuries and cuts with the sea water and sun on Calvi bay.

I found Bensaeh and ordered lunch in one of the restaurants on the port. The service was extremely slow, typical of Corsica. While I was eating I received a phone call but failed to pick up. I called up 2 minutes later.

“That’s 10 compte rendus for not answering your phone”, Caporal Fascimiento barked down the phone.

“But…”, I tried to respond.

“That’s another 10 compte rendus for answering back and if you don’t come back within 5 minutes that’s another 10 compte rendus, that’s 30 letters to write for the Captain, is that clear?”, the Caporal added.

I paid my bill in the restaurant and took a taxi. There was no way I could return in 5 minutes all the way from Calvi to Regiment. So I arrived there late and found both Caporal Panko and Fascimiento determined to make me an afternoon of hell before I did service a few hours later. I started doing push ups for about one hour, then crocodile, duck march and squats as usual, while in position on the floor I poured with sweat making a large pool in the corridor making me slide around. I still had pain in the limbs from the Brevet Alpiniste which I felt was wasted effort because I was failed due to a so-called technical fault. I was damaged, demoralized but not altogether broken. I kept going and while I was in position Caporal Panko started talking in his wispy Russian accent;

“What’s this, how can you leave dirty laundry and decide to leave regiment, is your uniform ready, did you even ask me or Fascimiento if you could go out?”

Panko started pulling everything out of my wardrobe and drawers, throwing everything onto the floor of the bedroom while I stayed in push up position. Panko was about to cause me complications at work if I couldn’t turn up to service in time, so I stood up and said he was soiling my affairs.

“Oh, it’s dirty, you’re damn right it’s filthy like you, who told you to stand up?”, Caporal Panko was in full drama mode. Another Caporal from the section made sure that I stayed in position – I was outnumbered as usual. Panko poured my box of detergent all over my clothes, the powder dispersed all over the room which added more work to my infinitely accumulating list of things to do. There was no way I could clean the room, prepare my tenue, write at least a hundred letters to the Captain as admissions of guilt, do exercises in the corridor and other corvée duties around the compagnie compounded by the service required by the regiment.

I was on the front gate doing sentinel all Saturday night, a one week electronic music festival on Calvi bay had just began with all the global djs playing and filled with young revelers passing by. I put my face against the steel bars, like a prisoner, deprived of my liberty, stripped of all pleasure, humiliated – but it was all happening for a reason and I had to be patient.

We perceived all our equipment for the stage Brevet Alpiniste Militaire, including the green mountain trousers, sunglasses, climbing shoes, boots with crampons together with a bunch of other equipment of our own; sun cream, goretex jacket, warm items, sleeping bag, water bottles and everything else to survive the high mountain. Being well-equipped was one of the most important factors in passing the stage. We were divided into two groups; A and B with everybody within the compagnie that hadn’t completed the 3 weeks of intense learning and training in the mountains. Our group was lead by 3 Caporaux; Caporal Vykov, Fascimiento and Caporal Masta together with 2 Sergeants; Sergeant Timetic and Nitco.

We took a 3 hour bus ride to the chalet Vergio where we would be based for the next 3 weeks. Our first day was inaugurated with a 20km march in 35 degree heat followed by a climbing and tyroline activity which allowed us to descend the mountain at high speeds from metal cords. As soon as we arrived at the chalet the essential curriculum was delivered in workshops, we started practicing how to make about 12 different types of knots, safety advice, theory about mountain climbing during the summer, traversing glaciers and evacuation with UT2000, a type of 2 piece stretcher assembled to evacuate any victim on the mountain.

I was given half of the stretcher to carry on our first march but wasn’t instructed on the best way to attach the UT2000 effectively onto my backpack. I started climbing with my load swaying from side to side rendering me physically tired quickly from the excessive effort I was making just keeping balance. I decided that the military goretex was too big to add to my load in the given heat and instead placed an extra litre of water in my fond sac to survive the heat. I just prayed that the chef-de-section didn’t ask that we wear it once we reach the top.

Once we reached the top of Mount Janssen at around 2000 metres above sea level and named after a Caporal killed in Afghanistan in 2012 due to friendly fire from the regular French Army. As we sat on the summit, we were instructed to drink and eat something and to my dismay, Adjudant Pouville demanded;

“Put your goretex on now”.

I had a different type of jacket called a Snugpak and so I put that on. I noticed that Paulino only had a windbreaker, which was more than necessary in the blistering heat of that day. In fact, it was just a test to see if we were equipped as instructed on what constitutes a fond sac, essentially, enough to survive in the mountains for at least 24h. We all grouped together to take a picture on the summit and after our proud poses, the Adjudant gave me a kick in the arse along with Paulino for being poorly equipped, despite the fact that we were both the bearers of the UT2000 which made our bags significantly heavier. I was publicly shamed for my poor equipment and felt like an idiot for packing the extra water and Snugpak instead of the Goretex.

I learnt my lesson, this was the army after all, not a camping holiday, we had no choice about what we could wear and not wear. From the first day, I made myself into a target again and nominated for corvée almost every evening until the end of the stage.

When we returned to the chalet, instruction on how to descend a mountainside using the rappel method together with climbing using cords and mosquetons by binome. When climbing one would secure keeping the rope tight allowing the climber to ascend with safety, in the event that the climber slipped and fell, the climber would tighten the rope so as to absorb the shock of the fall. Everything had to be conducted to protocol for the stage, with no margin of error accepted, hence the strictness. However, instead of allowing me to practice the technique I was made to do organize bundles of rope around my neck, lovage corde, all afternoon because I made one mistake which didn’t cause any injury or harm to anyone. Paulino slipped and fell and instead of tightening the rope fixed to my waist, I fixed it below my legs, supporting his weight but in an apparently unsafe manner.

It was too late, Adjudant Pouville said that he wouldn’t be passing me for the stage within my first week. Still I had some kind of hope that I could prove myself during the marches and the G20, which is an excruciatingly difficult timed race along the famous G20 path with 17kg weight. It was almost unheard of to fail the stage in any other manner apart from not completing the G20 within the given time of 3 hours and 45 minutes following weeks of marching beforehand in the extreme terrain of the Corsican Highlands.

I returned back to regiment with a heavy heart. After a taste of freedom for 4-weeks it was difficult to adjust back to the military routine, especially in the 2^eme compagnie where the Caporaux, often with the approval of the Sergeants would humiliate the legionnaires day and night. Of course, we weren’t all selected to be made into targets, I definitely was and so was Dubrovsky. I see both of them sat outside their 3^eme section building smoking, they both looked depressed. I gave them a heads up nod and that was the last time I saw them both. They took off in the middle of the night without even saying anything to me. I stand there before the bureau de semaine waiting to render account of my service in the kitchen and canteen that day, when the news broke out of 3 desertions in 24 hours. Dacier, the French guy with origins from the Reunion islands and was 1^st in ranking in Castelnaudary and the Brevet Parachute returned on the Sunday, picked up his gear the same day and left without telling anyone. In fact, I was lucky that week to be assigned to kitchen service to avoid the psychos within my section and compagnie.

The moment I arrived back to section I was punished harshly. I got back early and asked for the key to the room from the Caporal in the bureau de semaine, I placed my affairs on my bed to organize in good time. Within 20 minutes, Caporal Panko arrived back and the shit started;

“Who gave you the key to the room?”, he shouted at me.

“The Caporal in the bureau de semaine opened the door for me”, I justified.

“Why haven’t you cut your hair, you’ve got 2 minutes to shave your head”.

I ran outside with my clippers and shaved my head as quickly as I could and ran back into the section.

“You were 2 minutes and 20 seconds, position crocodile now in the corridor”.

I began to crawl down the corridor like a crocodile and Caporal Panko came out the room screaming again and threw one of my towels on the dirty floor.

“That’s another compte rendu for disobeying orders, I told you I didn’t want to see this civilian towel again, especially on the bed, I told you not to come back, now you will see what I’ve got for you”, Panko said in a rage with his red face.

I must of done at least 3 to 4 hours of crocodile walk, duck march, push ups and squats until Panko told me to get dressed and put by combat uniform on together with helmet and backpack.

“Now go get the materials for cleaning and start with the corridors then the toilets”, Panko added.

 I spent my first night in the toilets regretting my decision to come back to the Legion. However, I was sure the time would pass quickly in spite of the brief period of suffering humiliation. Within 3 weeks we were due to commence the compagnie stage in the mountains of Corsica, the Brevet Alpiniste Militaire, it was well-known to be one of the most difficult military training, physically and mentally demanding to be compounded by some of the most brutal Caporaux to accompany us. At least I would be separated somewhat by Caporal Panko who made every attempt to get me to desert 2REP. By the end of the week, we were trained in anti-riot tactics with the firefighters and Gendarmerie in almost 40 degree heat and I returned back to my bedroom for more ridiculous behaviour from both Caporal Panko and Fascimiento.

During the night, both Caporaux would keep telling me;

“You’re not welcome here, take your things and go, it’s just going to get worse, even on the Brevet Alpiniste we will make sure that you fail and get kicked out the compagnie, change something, look at Babic, he’s clever, he’s already asked for change in regiment, why don’t you do that, he knew that this place is not for him, you however, you think that it’s a test, you think that we’re going to say later on, well done Gaston, you’re really strong and we respect you now for enduring this, this is not the Navy Seals, we just don’t like you and we’re going to do everything to get rid of you. We’ll help you desert, don’t worry, civil life will be much better for you…”.

They were like a stuck record repeating itself. It was getting tedious to hear them say the same thing over and over again and I’m sure they were getting tired of me. I found some encouragement from some the other guys from other sections passing me while I spent the evening cleaning the walls or doing push ups all night. Caporal-chef Dacu, one of the most formidable and feared persons in the entire compagnie, he already smacked me on the chest with the butt of my rifle with his rubber gloves marked with Nazi swastikas for handing it back to him in the armory the wrong way. He was one of few guys encouraging me on;

“Don’t worry the time will pass quick, keep on going, you’re stronger than the rest of them, it’s just a phase”, Caporal-chef Dacu would praise me while he did his exercises and I was on the floor doing push ups or cleaning the walls of the section.

On the Monday morning, the two Swiss, Lekof and Tucker, failed to turn up for assembly, they had already returned back to Switzerland without even saying goodbye. So far in one week, our Promotion of 12 had been cut in half, 5 had deserted within one week and Babic had demanded a change in regiment due to ‘inaptitude to parachuting’ so he claimed. There were less young legionnaires to undertake all the corvée and this simply meant that we would do more of these menial tasks together with the more ancient legionnaires remaining within their sections. I felt disappointed in these deserters, especially given that 3 of them, Dacier, Tucker and Lekof consistently came top in all of our exams and training. Kokes was my binome from the beginning and was the most physically strong legionnaire within our promotion finishing the 8 mile TAP run in just 30 minutes and then there was, Dubrovsky, who kept me company during hard times, our smoking partner, always up for a laugh. Alas, they were all gone and I felt much more alone at 2REP.

My last week before the Alpiniste stage was marked by lots of ironing, writing compte rendus, physical exercises, dehydration, hunger and violence. After a full day of combat training with our new Heckler and Koch 416 semi-automatic rifles, I was obliged to carry large rocks and run around while everybody else was on a break, the Chef-de-section came to observe while I was running around within the vegetation on the verge to fall over and break a limb. That’s what they wanted, that I become incapacitated due to my own actions and would be transferred to the infirmerie for a long period of time.

I realized that even the Chef-de-section, Adjudant Pouville, couldn’t be trusted anymore when he shouted at me while I was running around with a rock on my head;

“That’s it Gaston, desert with your 2 Swiss friends, take your shit and leave”.

I realized that the favourable attitude to desertions was systematic and generally accepted to be normal within 2REP.  The Adjudant’s language reflected that of the Caporaux, I knew the abuse was complicit among most ranks and came from the top. I was up against the system now. I had a demanding couple of days before the stage punctuated by a night march in the mountains of Balagne in Corsica followed by a parade in full kit. I was given the transmission to carry, an additional 10kg with the batteries, dehydrated and sleep-deprived. I started filling up my bottles from the waterfall on one of the mountain trails we passed.

“Hey Connard, stop drinking that water, where’s your water, do you have at least 4 litres?”, the Chef-de-section went beserk while on our break on the mountain cliff. The pink sky setting in the horizon, it could have been romantic if so many men didn’t surround me.

“Oui Mon Adjudant, I drank at least 5 litres because I’ve been dehydrated all day”, I replied.

“For fuck’s sake, we’re always hungry and thirsty on the mountains, you fucking idiot, connard, look at you sweating like a pig losing all your water”.

The following morning, after parading around in the intense heat of Calvi, hours of standing around and commanded to perform ‘presentez arme’ and ‘reposez arme’ with our rifles. I returned back to my room to undress the long blue textile belt wrapped around my waist and the epaulettes on my shoulders. I felt a parade boot hit my stomach while I was undressing, it was Caporal Panko;

“Why did you drink all your water during the march, do you think that now you carried the radio the Adjudant will respect you now cretin? Pomp, pomp…”.

He grabbed me and I deflected more of his feeble hits to the chest and face. I took his arms and threw him onto the bed and we both fell onto the floor. I managed to overpower him while at the same time avoid hitting an authority which would result in me getting into trouble and doing tôle, he was out of breath and powerless. Nevertheless, I knew that it wasn’t over yet.

First day of freedom.

While on Permission Longue Duration or vacation and in spite of not being obliged to work, or run around like a headless chicken, every time I closed my eyes I heard the Caporaux in my head reminding me ‘that I shouldn’t come back’ or shouting some kind of abuse.

I spoke to others in regiment and this was apparently normal, it was a kind of test to keep the most motivated men within the company. However, it also had the opposite effect of demoralizing and discouraging the most fit and motivated within our group.

We arrived in Marseille and I realized how traumatised Kokes was in particular, as we made our way to the hotel, Dubrovsky offered to carry one of my bags filled with 2 bottles of Legion wine from the vinyards of Puyloubier near Marseille. About 50 metres from the entrance of the hotel, he threw the bag on the floor to light his cigarette.

“Hey what you doing, I told you it contains bottles of wine which are gifts for my friends in Paris”, I said, tired and quite angry at this negligent behaviour.

“Don’t worry it’s not broken”, Dubrovsky reassured me and carried on smoking his cigarette. Kokes snatched the bag from Dubrovsky and told us to hurry up. When we arrived in the reception of the Ibis hotel, a large pool of red wine formed all over the lobby upon seconds of arrival. I started swearing because I carried the bag all the way from Calvi only for my camarade to smash the bottle 100 metres from the hotel in Marseille. As we cleaned up the mess, Kokes noticed the stains of wine on his clothes and trainers and then started shouting at me for my ‘bullshit’ saying it was my fault for carrying wine like that.

“I don’t want to see you anymore, after check out tomorrow, we’re finished between us, don’t ever speak to me again”, Kokes said just before we went to sleep in this tiny hotel room for the 3 of us.  I woke up, had breakfast and left the hotel feeling sad about everything we went through at Castelnaudary and Calvi together. I didn’t want to waste my vacation feeling depressed and more tired than at regiment so I took the next train to Paris. When I arrived in Gare du Nord I see Kokes and he just ignored me.

Later that day Kokes phones me up to apologize and tries to convince me to accompany him to Amsterdam with him. I said ‘no thanks’ because I just didn’t want to spend my entire year including vacation with legionnaires and I just wanted to relax at that stage. I could just imagine the chaos if we both went beserk in the red light district. About 24 hours later I get another call back from Kokes saying that he’s returning from Amsterdam by train later in the afternoon and couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.

“Did you lose your military card, why you coming back so soon, did you lose your head?”, I asked while I was visiting one of the museums in Montmartre, Paris.

“Yeah kind of, I’ll tell you later, I’ll arrive at the train station at 17:00”.

“OK I’ll come pick you up and you can stay with me tonight”.

We only lasted about 24 hours of separation, we were talking normally again following the kind of kiss and fight you have with your siblings when you’re young. That was the Legion, like a family, most of us had no contacts in France and so we depended on each other more somewhat during free time than at work. Kokes didn’t feel like being alone and panicked while consuming some kind of psychedelic fungus – it was difficult to discern what was going through his head. We went for long walks in Pere Lachaise cemetery and the Picasso Museum in Marais. At the end of the evening Kokes said;

“I’m going to visit Dubrovsky in Marseille”.

“Sure go ahead, but I think I’ll stay in Paris a few more days”.

I stayed another week in Paris enjoying the sites and re-visiting my old life before the Legion. Civil life felt bizarre and I didn’t feel like the same person, however I certainly enjoyed my freedom. I really wanted to spend some time in Corsica, given it was my home and I barely knew the island. I took a train to Marseille and re-joined Kokes and Dubrovsky for a night out at the Old Port, lined with pubs, nightclubs and restaurants. I suggested that we check out Nice and Cannes since the Film Festival was about to commence in a few days. Dubrovsky spent all his money on an apartment for his entire vacation so I went with Kokes. While on the train, we saw the helicopters circulating around Cannes and the throngs of American people with cameras attached to their necks to go star snapping. And there was Kokes and myself in the middle of it all, two disillusioned legionnaires, drinking cans of beer by the beach and shouting at people wearing tuxedos and fancy dresses coming in and out of our hotel.

“Let’s go to the strip bar”, Kokes insisted while we were out in town.

“No Kokes, it’s not for me, I know what it’s like and it doesn’t give me pleasure, plus we don’t have enough money to last us the rest of the holiday”, I implored.

“Come on, it’s on me”, Kokes finally got his way.

We entered the subterranean strip bar in the heart of Cannes and were immediately approached by a stunningly blonde Polish girl who spoke perfect French. I enjoyed the 5 minute conversation with her together with watching the gyrating women doing striptease on the neon-lit dance floor while swinging on the pole.

“Would you like a private dance?”, the young blonde girl asked after she abruptly changed the subject about life in Poland and studying.

“Let me just speak to my friend for a moment, give me 2 minutes please”, I demanded politely.

I turned to Kokes and told him we should go before we get tempted into spending hundreds of Euros on a tit and vagina show. We began walking back to our hotel and started arguing about something along the way, we began to throw punches and kicks at each other in the middle of the street frightening people on the street. I woke up in the morning with a bruised leg which made it difficult for me to walk, I realized that the Legion can do more harm than good to a man’s state of mind in the civil world.

Not that Cannes Film festival was the real world anyway. We checked out the hotel the next morning, and decided that all this razzmatazz, red carpets and all this cock-sucking film workers wasn’t our scene and took a 30 minute ride to Nice, where I checked into my own hotel room so I can keep some healthy distance from my camarade. We both went our own ways that night and at about 2:00am I got another videophone call from Kokes, this time with blood on his face. When I spoke to reception about his incident, they told me that he fell onto some glasses in the kitchen and tried to take the Turkish flag down in front of the hotel within the display other flags from all over the world. Greeks generally hate Turks, especially when Kokes was drunk. We were both evicted from the hotel and I bought us ferry tickets to get back to Corsica early enough to enjoy a bit of the island before the busy summer season and more importantly to be back in time for work at the end of the month.

I was out of money at this point and my bankcard was blocked. I had lent hundreds of Euros before vacation to my colleagues and now I felt like a mug for doing so.  As long as I can get to Corsica I could ask someone from regiment to put me up for a week until we got paid. I called up a Colombian colleague who lived secretly outside regiment, he told me that I could stay and pay 150 balas at the end of the week. Unfortunately, for him he was sentenced to military prison that day or tôle for 20 days just as his girlfriend and her friend just arrived from Spain. It’s possible to do tôle for any infraction such as turning up late, fighting, drugs and alcohol use or doing anything against army rules.

It’s not like you can get fired with a 5-year contract but you can just be punished constantly throughout the entire time of your career if you couldn’t be seen to be playing under the rules. Bad luck for him and his girlfriend, she broke into tears in front of me and I felt like it was my duty to take care of them both and show them a good time. I had to ditch Kokes because the Colombian was furious when he found out I brought another legionnaire to his house, I did my best for him and brought him back to island. We spent our time on walks on the idyllic mountains, full days on the beach with Sangria and home cooking until I got paid. The Colombian’s girlfriend decided that she couldn’t be in a relationship with a legionnaire parachutiste, it was just too difficult for her, the long absences and horror stories – I totally understood her plight and probably didn’t expect a woman to be so patient with me either. The moment I got paid I suggested to the girls we should get out of the house and travel around the island with the car they brought on the ferry from Spain. We stayed in hotels and chalets all over the island, the National Park of Corsica in Corte, Ajaccio, Bonifaccio and Bastia. I took the train back to Calvi to prepare myself in my mind to return to the 2eme compagnie. The last few days of vacation is always the most difficult.

We were preparing the festivities of Camerone to mark the anniversary of the great battle fought by legionnaires in Mexico in 1863. We prepared the kermesse (a sort of outdoor stand and tent to sell food, drink and provide activities to the general public) together with undertake the parade in front of large audiences. We were also required to do the Cross competition which involves running 17km around the hills of Calvi with the final score based on the top 20, the quantity of compagnie members within the top ranks determined the result and winner of the contest. We were also obliged to attend and participate the other Camerone challenges such as boxing, crossfit, parcour nautique and shooting contests. I thought I was a good swimmer so I signed up to the parcour nautique without really fully understanding how difficult it was. Furthermore I was in no state to be doing additional contests having not slept for several days and made to due push ups from morning to evening.

The week of Camerone was especially difficult because a Brasilian Caporal had moved into my room, Caporal Pias Fascimiento. Everytime I made a sound by opening the metallic wardrobes just before 6am to commence corvée section, bedroom and compagnie he would go ape-shit everytime I disturbed him while he was sleeping. He put me into position and asked me to put my hands behind my back and put all the weight on my head for about 20 minutes which I felt was quite humiliating while he threatened to hurt me and make my life hell. He gave me a hard slap on the head and said;

“Take your shit and desert, the army is not for you, you’re not good for the army, I have no pity for you and there’s been many others in your bed that deserted and you will do the same, don’t come back after vacation”, he told me in a menacing way.

I hadn’t slept a few nights before and was feeling exhausted and demoralized in spite of my efforts to do everything possible to work hard within the section. It wasn’t working because I had the bad luck to be put in a room with a psychopathic Caporal who pretended to be omnipotent and extremely arrogant. The other new guys from my Promotion designated to the 2eme section didn’t have such misfortune because they were placed in rooms with more reasonable Caporaux or no Caporal such as Bensaeh, Campelo and Babic. I had to join the team for the Parcour Nautique that morning for the challenge and Caporal Pias made the habit of getting me to stand on my head until the last minute before turning up to assembly.

When the Caporal said I could go and stood up dizzy because all the blood rushed to my head and forgot the key to the room where I always left it for the other guy in the room. I turned up to the assembly late and without a backpack of bottles of water for the team. A Caporal-chef ordered me to go back to the section and get the bottles of water. I found myself locked out my room in a state of distress and exhaustion. I didn’t feel capable of doing the Parcour Nautique anymore, at that instant; the Chef-de-section walked passed me and asked me what my problem was;

“Come into my office”, Adjudant Pouville demanded.

“Legionnaire Gaston, à vos ordres Mon Adjudant”.

“Why are you dressed like that?”, he asked me.

“I’m supposed to do the Parcour Nautique and I don’t think I’m capable anymore”, I told him candidly.

“Are you a good swimmer?”, the Adjudant asked.

“Oui Mon Adjudant”, I replied.

Adjudant Pouville was French, a stocky man around his 40’s with plenty of years experience and one of the die-hards in the compagnie despite his charm and persistent wit. He was also absolutely ruthless which was I detail I wasn’t aware of until a bit later. It really takes a special kind of French national to stay within the Legion for almost 2 decades.

“Oh bitch please, go and do your challenge and I’ll set this all at zero”.

“Je peux disposer à vos ordres Mon Adjudant”.

I did my demi-tour droite and ran to the centre amphibie late for the challenge. I saw the installations in the sea and the crowds of men from every compagnie divided out in groups to watch their respective teams compete for the best time to complete the Parcour. I turned up without the water and was met by scorn from the Caporal-chef who asked me to bring some bottles. The 2 Swiss were on reserve for the challenge and were dressed up and ready to do the competition. They both asked me if I was fit enough to complete it and I had some encouraging words from my chef-de-section so was going to do it. The whistle screamed the start of the race, strapped with the rifle and swimming against the tide got me physically tired quickly. I noticed the Caporal-chef angry with me almost drowning to the 500 metres beginning of the obstacle course and had to be picked up by the speedboat and taken to the first obstacle. I swam unaided jumped on the first obstacle and then the second diving under a net of ropes underwater, then over some barrels and then had to climb a rope on a slippery aluminum surface.

 I slipped just as I reached the top of the rope and fell sharply on my rifle, out of breath with diminished power in my arms; I tried again and thought of the Swiss who really wanted to do the challenge. The speedboat came to me in rescue and I told them it was better to replace me quickly. They escorted me back to jeering crowds in shame and Lekof was put onto the obstacle course making us lose about 2 minutes for our collective time. The damage was done; I managed to gain the reputation of being weak within the compagnie. As I walked back soaking wet, one of the Hungarian Caporals involved in the competition told me that I should desert. I made new enemies quick and I considered that my career in the 2eme compagnie was finished. I came back to the section and ordered to change room after the Chef-de-section had a word with Caporal Pias. I broke the golden rule of speaking out and I was to be punished accordingly. The Adjudant demanded that I be transferred to Caporal Panko’s room. As soon as I moved in he told me;

“You’re not welcome here, I’m going to do everything possible to get rid of you and make you suffer, you snitched on a Caporal and for me, you’ll never be forgiven, you will ramasse here for years like a dog if you stay, worse, you lost us the Nautique challenge you cretin”.

A few days later we participated in the Kermesse, it was in good spirit with plenty to drink and eat with karaoke, members of the public attending and lots of activities. I ran around most of the time doing errands, and then dismantling the festival area. When it was all over we stood to assembly and handed out a piece of paper signed by the Adjudant stating that I had 4-weeks of vacation. It was almost incredible to believe that a legionnaire in the first year of service can receive any holiday, 4-weeks was generous and was exceptional due to the upcoming missions and stages we had to undertake in the following months. I had no idea how I would spend my vacation, I just wanted to rest, I had no passport because it was taken away since I subscribed to the Legion and I wouldn’t get it back until I had Regularization de Situation Militaire.

I saw Premier Class Winter, an American, who soldiered on to reach his 4^th year of service. We bought a few bottles and drank in his room until late in the evening.

I returned to my room to find everybody sleeping, I got about 2 hours of sleep before I was told that I had 20 minutes to get out my room because Caporal Panko was going to lock it with his key and I had no right to stay any longer. I packed a bag within a few minutes for a month of vacation and ran out of the regiment to be joined in Calvi by Dubrovsky with a black eye and Kokes running around frantically for ferry tickets to Marseille.

“We’re not staying here, that’s it we’re going to desert”, Kokes told me.

“Don’t be silly guys, the time will pass quickly, we’re going to do some cool things soon, Stage Brevet Alpiniste Militaire, go to Mayotte, when the new guys come in everything will calm down”, I pleaded with them both to stay and not desert.

“No Gaston, it won’t end, we’re tired of this bullshit, it never ends, I’ve seen guys in my section running around like rats with 3-years of service and for Dubrovsky it’s really serious because he’s lousy in sport and can’t run, he’s fucked and I want to go too”, Kokes explained.

“OK let’s take the ferry back to Marseille and relax a few days, you’ll change your mind I’m sure”.

We took a taxi to Ile-Rousse port and boarded our ferry. Freedom felt good but we were all traumatized. Dubrovsky couldn’t even speak and just kept falling asleep while Kokes was behaving erratically on the ferry pacing up and down unable to relax. And then there was me trying to keep us all together – for no good reason.

After FTS, we moved into one building at the 2^eme compagnie. We were obliged to buy everything we needed for the needs of and norms of the compagnie including the red t-shirts and vests together with the mountain gear including a new backpack and musette required from the compagnie. I spent around 2000 Euros on material within my first few weeks at 2REP thus spending almost everything I had earned during my time during training at Castelnaudary.

Fortunately, the pay gets incremented at 2REP once you achieve the brevet parachutiste and so we were entitled to receive the parachute bonus of an extra 800 Euros a month. However, at 2REP we weren’t entitled to receive extra pay for undertaking terrain exercises like in other regiments in the Legion because of the parachute bonus.

The compagnie had been deployed to mission Sentinelle in Paris. Since the numerous terrorist attacks on French soil in 2015, the armed forces have been concentrating on domestic missions to protect sensitive areas such as religious buildings, airports, train stations and other large events. I was sent with the 2 Swiss, Lekof and Tucker, to do a stage on folding and preparing the parachute at SREP and assigned to the Compagnie of Maintenaince Regimentaire for 6 weeks. We learnt in more detail the technical specification of the different parachutes, the old system 511 and the new system Ensemble Parachute Combatante (EPC) together with the old ventral and the new ventral system. Everyday was a new test to show that we were capable of folding to perfection each different parachute because after all, the life of the parachutiste depended on us. It was the only place at regiment where there were women working, including a female Adjudant-chef and Sergeante who was responsible for our instruction. I took advantage of the 2^nd compagnie absence and spent the whole weekend out in Calvi and town of Bastia in Corsica – my first real taste of freedom in several months where I spent my first night out in the famous Karoake bar in Calvi and took the 3.5 hour train to Bastia where I could get the chance to walk around anonymous talking to people from Corsica during the off-season months.

The time went quick and I had the freedom finally to relax during the evenings and read, do sport and socialize inside and outside of regiment. This life was about to change drastically as soon as the over 100 men from the compagnie arrived from Paris. I took off on the Monday morning from the 2eme section of the 2eme compagnie to go to pliage service now that I was a qualified plieur of parachutes. On my return in the evening I was met by Caporal Korolkov who said that me and the 2 Swiss had committed a huge banane or mistake by not checking in with the bureau de semaine before departing for service. He gave us all the corvée for the compagnie to do including the toilets, Captain’s office, section offices and even the Adjudant d’Unité’s office, Adjudant Robels.

Further, we returned to section to do the corvée of the section including the toilets, corridors and stairs followed by corvée of our bedrooms twice a day. It was non-stop cleaning together with questions posed by the Caporaux with respect to personnel, armaments, legion chants and other aspects of our legion curriculum that needed to learnt by heart. If we couldn’t reproduce the information when asked, we were condemned to more corvée, physical exercises and asked to write the information down a few hundred times in neat handwriting after the extinction de feu at 22:30. All of this accumulated and there was no infraction that could be pardoned or waived. This meant that we couldn’t sleep for days.

Worse, there was no more weekend as the youngest legionnaires to the compagnie we were given all the service to do during the weekends such as Planckton (not to be confused with the organism floating in the sea but a kind of errand boy subject to the demands of the bureau de semaine at any time from 6:00am to 22:30) together with clubman, or guard 24h which fell on weekends.

Even if we had a day off with no service, the Caporaux would find a way to keep us within Regiment as a form of punishment. For example, we all had to display our wardrobes in identical fashion with the logos showing, with equal measurements and everything immaculately ironed. I hadn’t quite achieved this standard and I became heavily criticized by a Caporal within my section, which turned me into the subject of abuse.  On top of this, I still had all my presentations to do with the Captain, Officers and all the other non-commissioned officers followed by the Caporaux within the compagnie.

I started out with Adjudant Robels, with over 20 years of service he had done a couple of tours in Afghanistan and Kosovo, a heavy drinker and smoker, face-reddened and slim for all the mountain training. I walked through the interior door of the 2^eme compagnie club, bought 2 beers, one for myself and one for him to start my presentation.

“Est-ce-que je peux faire ma presentation?”, I asked.

“Tu vas presenter kedal, cache-toi”, he barked with cigarette and Heineken to hand already.

I basically got my first presentation rejected by the Adjudant d’Unité and told to go ‘hide myself’. A pleasant start to my first weeks within the compagnie and it was only going to get worse.

We still weren’t accepted into the 2^eme compagnie of combat until we completed 3 more weeks of technical training with a different Sergeant from the 2eme compagnie, Sergeant Paina as well as Caporal Vykov and Caporal Lomokov. It was a Russian dominated encadrement and it felt like we were training for the Russian special forces, the Spetznaz. Our superiors chatted Russian to each other about the next test for us and would assess us constantly in how we performed on a day-to-day basis. We set up camp at the centre amphibie on the bay of Calvi, training and instruction was to be given daily to prepare us for the final examinations at the end of the 3 weeks.

We had to do an 8 mile TAP run in less than 50 minutes, carrying 17kg, parcour obstacles test in less than 4 minutes, cooper test, swimming, rope climbing, tractions and push up tests all over again. My lower back was still in pain after my first jump and so I didn’t perform as well as I could during the first 2 weeks of FTS. However, I managed to prove myself towards the end with the best time for the 12 minute Cooper test at 3,300m around the track. I regained the confidence of Caporal Vykov who congratulated me. However, punishment was collective, especially during this period.

Our first Sunday was marked by a full day of ramassage due to Dubrovsky turning up a few seconds late for rassemblement because he was on his phone smoking behind the tent when the Caporal made the call for assembly. We just got the right to use our phones again, the same phones we came to the Legion with; I didn’t bring my phone anyway so wasn’t afflicted with this distraction.

Caporal Lomokov got us doing ramping around a large puddle from the overnight rain just in front of the tent. Ramping is a form of displacement a soldier uses to move close to the ground on knees and elbows and can be quite painful when you have to do for more than 20 minutes. We got soaking wet in this puddle of dirty cold water and it wasn’t over. As soon as Caporal Vykov found out that one of us turned up late to assembly, he led us all into the creek fully clothed, then instructed us to empty all of our bags into a large pile on the sand, then disassemble the large tent, then reassemble it, followed by pushing the Masstech 4×4 up and town the campsite 20 metres and back again. Like this wasn’t enough, we we’re ordered to strip down all the armaments, the Browning 12.7, pistolets, Minimi, Mag 58, Grenade launcher and FRF2 into a huge pile. Each one of us had to assemble one of the weapons and then assemble the pistolet blindfolded with Caporal Vykov yelling at us in one ear. Then back into the creek for another soak down just as we were about to get dry. This went on all day until late afternoon and we were obviously quite exhausted and angry with Dubrovsky for his infraction.

Still it was good training and we became more disciplined and resilient as soldiers despite being physically and mentally exhausted. Caporal Vykov used to make preferences for the ones that excelled in terms of performance and discipline. Of course, I wasn’t one of his favourites and so he made lists of us that would do guard duty every night. I was given guard duty almost every night at some of the most brutal hours of the night at from 2am to 5am. We weren’t given any ammunition so we were just put out to walk around the campsite like scare crows. One night, Vykov gave us the Mag 58 to do the guard duty, which weighs almost 12kg. I was assigned to do a 2h shift of guard duty holding this heavy weapon. I briefly put the weapon down the sand to eat a snack because it had no strap for the shoulder. As soon as I gave the Mag 58 back for re-integration, both Caporaux noticed the dirt and started accusing me of not performing guard duty the said evening. Caporal Bykov made me carry the Mag 58 on my shoulders for the rest of the day and I had to write another compte rendu addressed to the Captain that I didn’t perform my guard duty the night before. I had several letters to write to the Captain of the 2eme compagnie for ‘non-respect of military reglementation’ when I shined my flashlight in the Caporal Vykovs face the evening before we were due to start a shooting exercise in the mountainous deserts of Casta in Corsica. I also got a few slaps to my face and was obliged to do a lot more of the shitty work on offer.

Alas, the FTS was coming to an end. Although we were happy to finish this grueling 3 weeks of training and sleeping outdoors, we were becoming increasingly nervous about moving into our respective sections at the 2^eme compagnie to find more Caporaux like Caporal Bykov. We were given permission to have a bar-b-q for our final Saturday at the centre amphibie and during the day I met a colleague, who called himself Rami, working as permanence in the club of the centre. He was Russian and spoke fluent Arabic and English, former Spetznaz, over 6ft and covered in tattoos. We already got along while I was ordered to do the corvée in the club and he would give me advice and tell me about his own experiences. I got the most useful piece of advice from him which was ‘don’t try and do your maximum because that way you’ll just get injured and end up dying’. Rami had a bad knee due to a fall whilst training and was missing out his mission with the 3^eme compagnie in New Caledonia. During our bar-b-q Saturday preparations, Tucker and Lekof, asked me if I could ask Rami to buy them some chewing tobacco from the local tobacconist. I said I’ll try and approached Rami while on his way to his car:

“Hey Rami, can I ask for a favour?”

“OK”, he replied flatly.

“I’ve got a couple of Swiss camarades in need of some chewing tobacco, if you’re going to town can you get me some?”, I asked as politely as I could.

“Why would you buy that shit, it’s disgusting, why don’t you just buy a bottle of whiskey”, Rami told me.

“Well the tobacco is not for me and I’m not sure we have authorization to consume spirits, but I’ll ask by camarades if they’re interested in sharing the bottle with me because I can’t drink it alone”.

“OK you do that and I’ll see you later”.

Rami drove off and came back a couple of hours later with no tobacco and only the bottle of whiskey. I told him that no-one wanted to share the drinks with me and that if I were to buy it I would need authorization from the Caporaux.

“Don’t be silly, it’s a Saturday night, you’re a soldier, what else you gonna do, I’ll tell you, I’ll go speak to Caporal Bykov now and it’ll be fine”, Rami assured me.

Rami turned away and walked into Caporal Bykov’s tent coming out a few seconds later and said;

“You’ve got authorization, but keep it low-profile and between you and me”.

I gave Rami the 20 Euros he asked me and took the bottle into our tent as we got the fire started in the bar-b-q just outside. Everyone got excited and some were visibly distressed by the acquisition of this bottle. I told everyone that it’s ok and got authorization. I put a bit in almost every cup, there was only 1 or 2 of us that decided not to drink so I respected their decision. We mixed it with tea and drank it neat around the bar-b-q with the smell of sausages and chicken burning on the seaside. We finished the bottle within 20 minutes and I hid the empty bottle of evidence in the bin. We had a few more beers in the club and took an early night around 23:00, at that stage, it was one of the best nights I experienced at 2eme REP so far. I see Rami and the Caporaux sat on the sofa chatting by the vast fireplace in the centre amphibie club and return to our tent, take my clothes off and get into my sleeping bag. I must have just fallen asleep after about 30minutes until we were awoken by loud bangs and pyrotechnics within the tent. It was Caporal Bykov and we all fled out the tent in our underwear.

“Who bought the bottle of whiskey?”, Vykov yelled.

“Moi”, I replied.

Caporal Vykov came next to me and punched me on the stomach taking all the respiratory wind out in an instant.

“Where do you think you are, in London, I know you speak Arabic but Rami is Russian so I can speak to him also, get into position now, pump, pump”.

I got into position and Vykov put his head next to mine telling me why he didn’t ask him directly rather than relying on a premier class soldier. I received another kick in the ribs and fell onto a large rock which caused persistent pain for the following weeks. I would always have some kind of injury during my time in 2REP.

“OK who drank the whiskey?”, Caporal Bykov demanded all 12 of us. There were only 2 that truly didn’t drink anything, Paulino and Babic. However, Lekof and Erdenee decided not to put their hand up and so the four of them went back to bed. The 8 of us were told to go into the Caporaux tent and doing press ups while Vykov shouted about disrespect to his authority.

“Where’s the bottle, find me the bottle?”, Vykov demanded.

The rest of them fetched the bottle easily from the bin and gave it to the Caporal.

“Here Restrepo, smash the bottle over Gaston’s head”.

Restrepo stood there with the bottle trembling while I was still in position. Kokes snatched the bottle from him and broke it on a rock to save me.

“OK everyone must start writing compte rendu’s for ‘use of unauthorized substances’ and that includes chewing tobacco, but don’t worry Gaston, you go to bed now it’s fine”, Vykov told me.

This can’t be over, everyone is ramassing and I’m allowed to go to bed. I stood outside the tent listening to what was said;

“Everybody dig a hole big enough for Gaston”, Vykov ordered.

I heard the scratches and hits of utensils digging sand until Vykov popped his head out and ordered me to go to sleep. I got into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes, about 20 minutes later, all 7 of my camarades accused of drinking came into my room and carried me while I was still in my sleeping bag into the tomb especially made for me within Caporal Vykov’s tent. I was thrown into my tomb with all the chewing tobacco tins from the Swiss as commanded by the Caporal and buried alive with just my nose and eyes poking out the sand. Everybody was ordered to go to sleep and was left there buried in the sand and pebbles. I got interrogated until the early hours of the morning while Caporal Lomokov put his Beethoven music put his music on loud so no-one could hear my yelling while Caporal poured water and orange juice into my face simulating drowning.

“Why are you here, you’re running away from the police right, somebody wants to kill you, tell me the truth or you’ll be staying here for another hour”.

Caporal Vykov pulled me out of my tomb at around 4:00am soaking wet and covered in dirt. I was told to fill my tomb up with sand and make it neat and tidy, as well as make a pyramid from all the stones excavated from my grave. I was shivering aggressively and tried to get back to sleep in my drenched sleeping bag. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep after my waterboarding episode and just managed to stand up from the damage to my ribs from the rocks I fell on earlier. We started our collective march with all our weapons through the picturesque hills of the Balagne region in the North of Corsica, entering patrimonial villages such as Pigna with our camouflaged faces. Several hours later we were picked up from Calanzana in the GBC by Caporal Vykov. We get back to base and have our dinner delivered from the canteen at regiment. Caporal Vykov pulls out a bottle of whiskey and says to us;

“You’ve passed the test, now you have full authorization to drink”.

We weren’t assigned into our companies of combat until we gained the Brevet Parachutist. Another 2 weeks of intense learning, practice and training to be airborne. Every group that undertakes the brevet goes under a Promotion number; we were Promotion 1427 and put together in the same living quarters and given orange sweaters and t-shirts to conduct our sports tests. More tests.

Moniteur Patat disappeared to re-appear a couple of weeks later. Moniteur Rougain who was to instruct us to become troupe aeroportée within a few days replaced Patat and we commenced with the theory and technical specification of the parachute. The same evening we were greeted by Caporal Vykov who made me start doing push ups within seconds of seeing him, we were about to spend the next 5 weeks with just one caporal. Caporal Vykov measured at about 5ft 8 but his charisma made him appear much larger. Apart from being charismatic, he was a total megalomaniac and psychotically strict. Just better off getting on his good side if you wanted to survive this because this Caporal had no pity.

He showed us how to equip the parachute and how to put it on our backs as well as how to put the parachutes into different positions of reintegration. It was easy to get one of the sangles twisted around one of the thighs. We drilled late into the night under exam conditions. Any fault would result in a smack on the head and the Caporal would frequently turn into fits of rage if something was not disciplined enough. Too much chat, poor presentation, uncleanliness, errors in technical or practical application was all causes for Caporal Vykov’s psychotic episodes.

“What’s wrong with you Gaston, are you retarded or what, look at your sangles”.

There was always something wrong with my sangle and so Vykov would bang his fist against my helmet and then did a flying kick at my parachute and he missed resulting in the Caporal falling to the ground making him angrier. The same evening we were told to take a shower and of course, one of the showers was reserved just for the Caporal. Without full knowledge of this, I proceeded to take a shower in his designated douche and he pulled me out to start doing press ups in my towel on the wet shower floor. The towel wasn’t attached very well and slipped off while I was doing physical exercises. The army felt like the gayest thing I ever experienced at this point while Caporal Vykov was yelling at me and threatening about how I was going to suffer in the 2^eme compagnie.

As soon as the plane was foreseen to arrive, we were instructed to get our helmets and prepare our gains (the backpack which can be fixed between our thighs and released to land at about 50m from hitting the ground). We were bundled onto truck (the GBC) and lined up onto the tarmac at about 6am for our first jump. I didn’t make any errors with my sangles of the harnais as Moniteur Rougain passed his verification throughout our Promotion. The screams of the Transall plane roared passed us and we crawled into the back door of the plane one by one to be met by Moniteur Patat in his overall and orange Moniteur helmet.

We circled the bay of Calvi and the green light illuminated followed by a buzz. I was positioned first on the open door with the wind beating my face and spectacular views of the sea. One by one we shuffled into a position and Patat, made a gesture of snorting something to suggest that jumping at 400m was like doing a line of something. Patat took hold of my Sangle Ouverture Automatique and I put myself into position and jumped. I followed the procedure by making verification left and right turning with the elevateurs in each hand and took to the landing position a few seconds later, legs together, slightly bent, head down, elbows nicely tucked inside.

I misjudged the wind direction and landed on my arse with a heavy thud unable to offset the kinetic energy with the procedural roll on the ground. The shock absorbed straight onto my lower back causing a sharp pain to my coccyx. I got up alive with nothing broken and ran back to the gates of the regiment to re-integrate the parachute stuffed into its sac de parachute. We repeated another 5 jumps in the following 24 hours to gain our brevet in terrible weather conditions, thunder, lightning and heavy rain.

We finished on a Friday afternoon just in time for the weekend and it was tradition to go to Calvi and celebrate the brevet. The highest-ranking stagaire for the brevet was permitted to sleep with the oldest prostitute in Calvi, Lorenna (who I later found out was previously a man after her gender re-assignment). Fortunately, I wasn’t the majeur du stage so I wasn’t obliged to solicit the services of an old transgender hooker. In the restaurant, there were no other women apart of other old working women keen to get to know young legionnaire parachutists. There was Maria, Jennifer and the notorious Lorenna on a rainy January night in Calvi, we were talk of the town with plenty of bottles of alcohol to accompany us for an evening in the old port of Calvi. Everybody got wasted, the Mongolian Erdenee, vomited in front of the restaurant, Kokes fell asleep on Maria’s lap and most of the others had to be dragged back into the bus at midnight while we witnessed other legionnaires causing havoc at Bar y Est, the only bar with karaoke for legionnaires in Calvi. We soon discovered that no other bar or restaurant welcomed legionnaires for the trouble we caused. Welcome to Calvi for the next few years of your life.

We were all dispatched back to Aubagne after Castelnaudary, where it all started in the Legion for us about 5 months ago. All 40 of us with a few extras from other sections that got delayed for Ventilation process, (Ventilation seems like we were about to get some hot air blown onto us but actually means in this context, being transferred to regiment or in some cases heading back into civilian life).

It was our last night of being together as a section, 5 months of sharing everything, toilets, bivouacs, buses, food and going through tests.

Most of the guys I would never see again apart from the 12 volunteers to 2REP including myself. We put on our TDF uniform for our formal ceremony with the Chef-de-corps in the salle d’honneur and the crypt of the Legion where the famous Captain Danjou’s prosthetic wooden hand rests together with the names of all the legionnaires killed in service throughout all the Legion’s history of almost 200 years since its inception from 1831. Following the ceremony where the Colonel donned his white gloves to congratulate personally to the 4 mostly highly ranked legionnaires within our section, Tucker, Dacier, Lekof and Macaud.

We proceeded to visit the museum but weren’t given any time to read any of the content or study any particular artifact because Caporal Chinda was ordering us to hurry up. There, the details of the most celebrated battle of Camerone was displayed where over 60 effective legionnaires bravely resisted against around 2000 Mexican warriors.

In this battle of 31 April 1863, Captain Danjou was assassinated with a bullet to the chest and the only 3 legionnaires survived the ambush to their fortified Hacienda in Camarone, Mexico. One of them spoke Spanish and was able to make a plea to care for their injured and return home. The Mexicans allowed the 3 legionnaires to return home with their injured and since then, legionnaires have been given legendary status within France for their bravery and for being elite soldiers based on this legend.

The Mexican commanders referred to the legionnaires as devils and from then on, ‘le diable marche avec nous’ has become the official chant of the 2REP superimposed onto a former Nazi war song ‘Tief Im Feindesland’. Following the Second World War, the Legion was to receive thousands of German recruits escaping from the fallen Third Reich and thus forging German tradition within the Legion and particularly 2REP where we were obliged to sing in German, Westerwald and Edelweiss within the 2^eme compagnie de montagne.  

The following day after the ceremony, we assembled in the place d’arme to go to our respective regiments. We stood to attention while our names were called out one by one. Everybody departed with their baggage and embarked on their buses, within a few minutes most of us were gone apart from us at 2REP because we had to stay an extra day to do some extra medical checks at the military hospital Laveran to check if were sufficiently apt to begin jumping from planes within a week or two. We were put in order of our ranking at Castelnaudary, Dacier, Tucker, Lekof, Paulino, Gaston, Restrepo, Campelo, Kokes, Bensaeh, Dubrovsky, Erdenee and Babic.

“Gaston Neil”.

I got escorted by a young nurse into the X-ray room where she instructed me to take my clothes off, just a small pair of running shorts and t-shirt which I just threw on the floor instead of hanging them up neatly on the door. I stood in this machine while it scanned my entire spine and within a minute or two it was all done. I was told to get dressed and wait with the others, my first conversation with a woman in a few months and I did it butt naked.

The next day, Sergeant Patat was waiting for us to deliver us to Calvi for the overnight ferry.

“Just call me Moniteur, as you can see my name is Patat, so I’ll be taking a run if you want to join”.

To have ‘Patat’ in French means to be physically strong or full of potato. In fact, Moniteur Patat didn’t invite us to run that day because he complained about the night before in a nightclub filled with cougars. We took our bus to Marseille port for our ferry to Corsica, dressed up in our TDF uniforms for all the public to watch while sat in the waiting room for the departing ferry. It was an emotional moment and a new chapter in our life because it was expected that we spend our entire first contract of 5 years in the same regiment. Corsica was our new home and we had to embrace it or get the fuck out.

We put our bags down in our rooms on the ferry and went straight to the bar to buy rounds of drinks, cocktails, beers and wine, everybody got a round in while we listened to Moniteur Patat, a big personality with about 15 years of service and praising the 2REP as the best regiment in the Legion. We gathered on the front deck of the vessel with our cups and gave a big cheers a few miles off the coast of Marseille. The city lit up in the setting sun, ahead, eternal darkness of the black Mediterranean Sea and an unknown fate on a distant island.