Through an ally’s eyes
Posted By Russ Emerson on November 25, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Very interesting item about US troops, as seen by one of the French troops serving alongside them in Afghanistan: A Nos Freres d’Armes Americains.
OK, OK, you might not actually read French. My apologies.*
An English translation is here: American troops in Afghanistan through the eyes of a French OMLT infantryman.
Here we discover America as it is often depicted: their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by lack of privacy and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. 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.
Quite a nice tribute to our lads over there. Do read the whole thing.
* To be honest, my French is somewhat rusty, it having been close to 30 years since my four years of Mr. Piacentini’s classes in high school… one of those intervening years spent at the Defense Language Institute Korean Basic Course, by the conclusion of which I had trouble writing English, much less remembering anything about French, other than that I had once been moderately fluent.
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