Roger that!
Posted on 05/05/2024 8:29:22 AM PDT by Drew68
How does this drag us into a fight with Russia? France isn’t NATO, this is no different than these US bombing Gaddafi.. Just because a member does something doesn’t mean it’s the whole alliance doing it..
That was my point. IN fact, I was wondering if they have any rubber trees in Ukraine. In Vietnam, we had to reimburse the French $ 1 million for each rubber tree we blew up accidentally or on purpose. My tongue in cheek comment was to make folks aware that is exactly how we were dragged into Vietnam. I am a witness to it.
FTA: Macron has to hope that his troop deployments to Ukraine won’t trigger a Russian embargo on sales to France.
He is not very bright is he?
“””””In Vietnam, we had to reimburse the French $ 1 million for each rubber tree we blew up accidentally or on purpose.”””””
No we didn’t, look into it.
So much is wrong from this article, Frenchmen can join the Legion, and the minimum enlistment is 5 years, not 3, the five year minimum is why I did not return my enlistment form to them.
“According to reports, today France cannot support an overseas deployment of a full division and won’t have this capability until 2027 at the earliest.”
France says it can commit 20,000 troops within 30 days to a threat. The French army says it counts 121,000 soldiers and can call up 24,000 reservists.
“France is not deploying its home army and, besides the small number of officers, the men sent are not French citizens.”
The Legion is part of the Army and has many Frenchmen.
I was in the Navy but had a tank commander tell me that story. I don’t trust the reporting of it by anyone, whether true or not. Do you have a source that you are referring to, or did you have personal knowledge of it?
This claim might be more accurate, we did pay for various damages, including rubber trees, and tried not to damage them.
“The National Coordinators of Vietnam Veterans Against the War once wrote: “We supposedly valued human life while our enemy did not. Yet we paid the owners of the Michelin plantations $600 for each rubber tree we damaged, while the family of a slain Vietnamese child got no more than $120 in payout for a life.”
https://saigoneer.com/saigon-culture/17206-the-harrowing-history-of-vietnam-s-rubber-plantations
It is possible that my tank commander exaggerated, but he stuck by his story. I am sure the amount increased the older he got, like most fish stories. I was Navy Air, so I never got in the bush (thank God).
Most people who know about the war or read about it know that we paid for damaged rubber trees and tried to minimize the damage to those plantations with artillery and tanks and bunkers, but the figure used was way out of place.
A friend would make USMC HMM trips to a Michelin rubber plantation in South Vietnam. “We had to reimburse the French $ 1 million for each rubber tree we blew up,” was originally a story told (and retold), in order to discourage the damaging of property owned by Michelin.
That company tried to maintain an amazing, incongruous neutrality in the face of the French defeat, 10+ years earlier - the U.S.A. somehow taking the blame instead of the French, with France being the place of future peace negotiations.
My friend left South Vietnam in 1969 after two tours. He was discouraged by ROE re both Michelin and Shell Oil Co. I can find an ROE re rubber plantation operations at:
But I am not sure of, when the story became the rule.
It looks like you're right. I searched and saw nothing on this, other than Macron saying he hasn't ruled out sending troops to Ukraine.
In DS, they were a flank unit to my brother’s (101st AASLT). They were generally better equipped, supported and at least as well trained as the US infantry. He was surprised (in the 1990 era) to find a number of Americans in the ranks.
The FFL allows French leadership to execute whatever insane Frog foreign policy they like without endangering the lives (and votes) of his Metropolitan Army...
(WWIII)
yep
Roger that!
“France joining ‘41’s anti-Saddam coalition with ONE soldier who never left Paris.”
France had a Division on line for Desert Storm, right next to the 82nd Abn Division.
I think fake news. Link in article is dead and nothing on other news sources
yefragetuwrabrumuy, post on the thread, I don’t know what that PM meant.
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