Foreign Legion: We fight, not chat

TORA, Afghanistan (AP) — As soon as the French Foreign Legion moved in this summer, some of the men climbed on the roof of the base headquarters and painted the force’s Latin motto in big white letters.

“Legio Patria Nostra.” The legion is our homeland.

Home has been in many far-flung places for legionnaires during their storied 178-year history — North Africa, the Far East, Mexico, and now the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan as part of NATO’s U.S.-led International Security Force.

The legion’s Afghan contingent consists of 750 men of more than 80 nationalities. Some have joined up for high-adrenaline life, some are dodging the law, some have come from poor countries simply to earn a decent wage.

If anything bothers them about the Afghan mission, it’s NATO’s rules of engagement, which stress the need not just to fight the Taliban but to befriend the local population.

“We’re meant for fighting. There’s too much chatting around here,” said Chief Sgt. Alex, downing beers in the legionnaires’ clubhouse at Tora base, an open-air shed whose large flat-screen TV was showing hard-core porn videos to the music of “Viagra,” a Ukrainian techno band.

A 23-year veteran of 17 legion missions, mostly in the Balkans and in former French colonies in Africa, Alex said he was expecting his fifth citation for valor, for a nighttime combat mission with U.S. Special Forces.

Like his comrades, the British-born former pub manager went only by his first name, an alias. The legion gives all recruits a new name and strictly guards their anonymity.

“Legionnaires begin a new life when they join,” explained Capt. Michel. “Each and every one of them is allowed to keep his past a secret.”

It’s part of the legion’s mystique, along with a reputation for ferocity, in battle as well as in the training needed to mold men of many countries and languages into a single force.

Since settling into their base at Tora, in the Surobi district east of Kabul, the legionnaires, who make up almost a third of French troops in the NATO force, have not had many opportunities to fight.