Posted on 12/03/2002 6:26:56 PM PST by Sungirl
I don't know how true this is, but it makes a good story.
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France Meets the USMC -- or -- A U. S. Marine in Bosnia
A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia):
A French army officer walked up to me in the PX, and told me he thought we (Americans) were a bunch of cowboys and were going to provoke a war. He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to count of the support of France.
I told him that it didn't surprise me. Since we had come to France's rescue in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Cold War, their ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface at some point in the near future anyway.
That is why France is a third-rate military power with a socialist economy and a bunch of wimps for soldiers.
I additionally told him that America, being a nation of deeds and action, not words, would do whatever it had to do, and France's support was only for show anyway. Just like in ALL NATO exercises, the US would shoulder 85% of the burden, as evidenced by the fact that the French officer was shopping in the American PX, and not the other way around.
He began to get belligerent at that point, and I told him if he would like to, I would meet him outside in front of the Burger King and beat his behind in front of the entire Multi-National Brigade East, thus demonstrating that even the smallest American had more fight in him than the average Frenchman.
He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Mary Beth Johnson
LtCol, USMC
The only problem I have right now is waking up to your post calling me an ugly American. I am not the writer of the email...if you have a problem with it...write the Marine Corp. and wrestle with them.
Please disregard previous post.....
He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff.In other words, he followed the French national motto and surrendered.
Next time, tell him to go to Paris and plant more trees, so the German troops don't get sunstroke on their next march.
-Eric
That's "Joan of Arc Hearing Voices" by J. Bastien-Lepage. Painted in 1880. (If you look carefully, you can see several of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in the background). He died very young, most critics park him with the Impressionists, but he's hard to categorize. Some of his work is very impressionistic, other works are more like Millet in their gritty take on French rural life.
This one is more like a pre-Raphaelite painting than anything else (look at the almost hallucinatory detail in the grass):
Here is a portrait he did of Sir Henry Irving the English actor, never finished because Irving disliked the informal pose (but it does capture Irving quite well - that may have bothered him more than anything.):
Perhaps the real enemy is socialism rather than the French per se.
(*) But here a precision I am fed up hearing we are and we were all antisemits like in 1939. French ppl saved 75% of the jews under the german pressure, whereas only 10% or less survived in Holland or Poland. So it is so easy to give history the meaning one wants. And yes collaboration existed but we lost to the Nazis ... It's easy to accuse a population as a whole, that is what antisemits actually do. I don't even point the jewish institutions who have collaborated with the nazis by giving names.
The French killed more Jews for their German masters than any other country.
France has and will always be a bunch of Jew haters. No amount of your Frenchie whine can change that.
Oh..one more joke,
Why are all the roads in Paris lined with trees?
So the Germans could march in the shade.
Oh and Karl try not to burn any synagogues today.
(#$%@&@#! -- Another public school student...)
This is not complicated. Prior to Americas entry in both WW1 and WW2 they had already called Berlitz to begin teaching German to the entire continent of Europe. <~g~>. It was all over, done, kaput, Germany had won both wars.
The American Capitalist Economic Powerhouse, backed by the overpowering God-given decency and courage of the American People saved Europe twice in one century. Ingratitude changes nothing.
The French Foreign Legion isn't really French, you know. It is, as the name says, comprised of foreigners.
From their home page:
What Is The French Foreign Legion?
The French Foreign Legion is a military formation of approximately 8500 men serving as a branch of the regular Armed Forces of France. It differs from other military units by accepting foreigners from any country in the world into its ranks.
It wasn't unnecessary and stupid for France as well? Anyway, we have one miskate. You have a whole history of them, like when you got your butts kicked at Agincourt. Just face it, France is a nation of military failure and general wimpiness.
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