A French Soldier's View of US Soldiers in Afghanistan

 
A French Soldier's View of US Soldiers in Afghanistan

What follows is an account from a French ISAF soldier that was
stationed with American Warfighters in Afghanistan sometime in the past 6
years.  This was copied and translated from an editorial French
newspaper.


A NOS FRERES D’ARMES AMERICAINS


"We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while -
they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry
battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy.
To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with
them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor
to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that
the movies brought to the public as series showing "ordinary soldiers
thrust into extraordinary events". Who are they, those soldiers from
abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the
men of our OMLT every day? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the
one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company,
and it has become the support company. 





They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view
the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have
to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes
trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever State
they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in
some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other.
Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and
creatine- they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their
muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we
are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often
mistake us for Afghans.

And they
are impressive warriors! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at
it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be.
Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us
everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a
combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet,
combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost
never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter
wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive
hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight
unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no
pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements
are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights
indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the
vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark
even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.Here we discover
America as it is often depicted: their values are taken to their
paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this
outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley.

And
combat? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to
the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the
shortest delay. That is one of their tricks: they switch from T-shirt
and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with
the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting: they just
charge! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask
questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short.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. Each man knows he can count on the
support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an
American could miss in such a remote front-line location: books,
chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that
every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his
difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions: the
American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat
team are the focus of all his attention.

(This is the main area where I'd like to
comment. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from
Chant Pagan: 'If your officer's dead and the sergeants look
white/remember it's ruin to run from a fight./ So take open order, lie
down, sit tight/ And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact,
is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers. 'In
the absence of orders, take a defensive position.' Indeed, virtually
every army in the world. The American soldier and Marine, however, are
imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of
Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for
precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other
'incident', the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and
SOP to carry the day.

This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat
and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and
Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly
surprising. No wonder is surprises the hell out of our enemies.)





We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores
are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A
passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check
that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support
ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is - from what we
have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and
worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.


To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat
outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to
those who pay the daily tribute of America's army's deployment on Afghan
soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will
always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say
that we are all the same band of brothers".

Personal Thoughts About the Article:

For much of this article, the various veterans reading will go 'Well,
duh. Of course we do our 'camp chores' and stand our posts in good
order. There's a reason for them and if we didn't we'd get our heads
handed to us eventually. And, yeah, we're in shape. Makes battle easier.
The more you sweat, the less you bleed.'


What is hard for most people to comprehend is that that attitude
represented only the most elite units of the past. Current everyday
conventional boring 'leg infantry' units exceed the PT levels and
training levels of most Special Forces during the Vietnam War. They
exceed both of those as well as IQ and educational levels of: Waffen SS,
WWII Rangers, WWII Airborne and British 'Commando' units during WWII.
Their per-unit combat-functionality is essentially unmeasurable because
it has to be compared to something and there's nothing comparable in
industrial period combat history.


This group is so much better than 'The Greatest Generation' at war
that WWII vets who really get a close look at how good these kids are
stand in absolute awe.



Everyone
complains about the quality of 'the new guys.' Don't. The screw-ups of
this modern generation are head and shoulders above the 'high-medium' of
any past group. Including mine.So much of 'The scum of the earth, enlisted for drink.'


This is 'The Greatest Generation' of soldiers.


They may never be equaled.

http://www.warriorlodge.com/blogs/news/16298760-a-french-soldiers-view-of-us-soldiers-in-afghanistan


Original Article in French HERE