Product Description

FIGHTING FOR THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION (Memoirs of a Scottish Legionnaire) is my autobiography and covers my life from commercial artist to Police Officer to my time in the French Foreign legion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10663 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

From the Author
It is an honest attempt to explain to readers what it is like to be a part of this famous organisation

From the Inside Flap
The French Foreign Legion has long has a fascination and mystique as well as a fearsome fighting reputation. Yet there are few factual accounts of whar life in the modern Legion is really like. Alex lochrie's account is therefore most welcome and refreshing.
At the outset the odds were loaded against the author ever becoming a Legionnaire; he spoke no French and at thirty-eight he was close to the upper age limit. Indeed rather than take a new name, as is the right of all legionnaires, he opted to 'become' temn years younger!
Yet, possibly as a result of his maturity, he not only earned his Kepi but became a member of the elite Legion Parachute Regiment. In the years that followed he saw active service in Central Africa, Iraq and Bosnia, where, incidentally, he was awarded the French military Cross.
Reading this book is a revealing experience. Alex vividly describes the rigorous selection process and training regime, his fellow Legionnaires drawn from many countries and levels of society, and conditions he experienced on his many and varied adventures both in conflict and relative peace. He has strong views on politicians and journalists who, in the name of a good story, manipulate events. At the same time he is aware of, and sensative to, the suffering that war brings to innocent bystanders.
FIGHTING FOR THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION, being a serious and worthy addition to the bibliography of this unoque regiment, will be appreciated by those who seek a clearer understanding of this enigmatic fighting force.

From the Back Cover
ALEX LOCHRIE has had anything but a normal career. His education was hindered by dyslexia and he left school at sixteeen, to become a graphic illustrator while studying at Glasgow School of Art in the evening. After an appointment as Advertising Manager at a major retail group, he changed direction and joined the Police eventually specialising in Forensic Scene of Crime Examination. In his spare time he drove rally cars, represented his country at athletics and learnt to fly.
In the early 80's he set off to join the French Foreign Legion and his experiences during the next eleven years are the subject of this book.
He now runs a marketing company in Sctland and his wife Marian has a specialist gift shop.

Customer Reviews

Fighting - or Writing - for the French Foreign Legion
Is there anyone in the French Foreign Legion who has time to go out fighting these days, or are they all busy writing their memoirs? Since Simon Murray's seminal Legionnaire of 1978 the trickle of books about the Legion has become a tidal wave. I've counted seven in English alone between 2005 and the present. One pictures the lads scribbling away in the foyer of an evening, shaven heads bowed, Kronenbourgs neglected for the time being.
These recent books inevitably have a sameness; the aspiring recruit is fed up/has family or girlfriend problems/wants to relive his old army life/seeks adventure/likes the uniform/glamour of the legion. He is accepted (one of the chosen few) and survives basic training with its boring chores and incredible physical extremes. If his rating is high and he is British, he likely opts to join the elite parachute regiment, 2 REP. Here he makes friends and enemies, endures even more physical hardship, may see some action and is likely to leave after his initial five years are over - perhaps deserting earlier if he can take no more - his obsession with the Legion cured.
Scotsman Alex Lochrie's book, published in 2009, is different, bringing a new dimension to accounts of life in the Legion. He suffered from dyslexia in childhood, had an unsympathetic family, but still carved out various careers as artist, illustrator, advertising manager, policeman, and in his spare time, drove rally cars and learnt to fly. In his late thirties he suffered, dare one say, a mid-life crisis and found himself, like many before him, standing uncertainly outside the ancient gates of Fort de Nogent, the Legion's Paris recruiting base. Once accepted, 38-year-old Lochrie assumed not a nom de guerre but a new age - at 28, ten years younger. To his surprise he was chosen to join the 2éme REP - he had expected the equivalent of the old Pay Corps - and stayed in from 1983-94, leaving when he nearly 50 when a good pension deal was offered him.
There are light moments in the book, the tricks played on the sergeant escorting his group to a caporals' course, and how ladies' tights were discovered to provided as much warmth in -20C temperatures as expensive Arctic underpants. But it is his accounts of duties in the Gulf and in former French colonies of Chad and the Central African Republic that help to provide that extra dimension.
Even more remarkable are Chapters 14-16. Lochrie was part of a UN peace-keeping force based at Sarajevo airport during the harrowing Bosnian War where his use of digital photography became of paramount importance. He experienced great dangers, a soul-destroying atmosphere, corruptness, overwhelming poverty. His anger at journalists who manipulated events to get a good story is palpable. It was here that Caporal-chef Lochrie won the French Military medal, about which he is extremely modest.
A couple of small points. At the stroke of a pen, Lochrie creates a new outfit, the 14th demi-brigade. Maybe he doesn't like using the number 13. And he ends with an untranslatable motto - Legis Pastra Nostra. Probably the famous Legion motto Legio Patria Nostra, the Legion is our Country, is meant. Perhaps someone at the publishers just couldn't read his writing.

A MUST READ
This is an honest account of what the French Foreign Legion is like today. Appart from those who love anything about the military, it is a must from anyone thinking about taking the gigantic step of joining the Legion.

Honest
I loved this book. Couldn't put it down and got a telling off at my work for reading it at my desk.
When I got home I read it in one go