From Silence to Spectacle

Our friend and comrade Ch. Morisot found a text online that could be titled "The Silence of the Veterans." He asked me for my opinion on it.

My response appears after his text.

By an anonymous author

"Former legionnaires are often asked why they don't talk about their service in the Legion, why they remain silent.

The civilian world only perceives the Foreign Legion through the lens of novels, films, and popular culture. This myth, which invariably shrouds it, creates an illusion a world away from lived reality. The true reason for the veterans' reserve is much deeper: what one experiences in the Legion is impossible to convey to the home front.

Anyone who has not served in this unique institution will never be able to grasp the moment of absolute uprooting." That precise moment when a man crosses "the threshold," severs ties, abandons his former identity to receive an assumed name, and begins a new life. It is a process honed by decades of tradition, aiming at the deliberate deconstruction of the past to build a new identity, forged by iron discipline, absolute loyalty, and total devotion to the corps.

From a civilian perspective, these experiences are elusive. Attempts to verbally recount them invariably encounter incomprehension or reductive clichés perpetuated by the public. The silence of those who have worn the white kepi is in no way a sign of weakness or a theatrical mystery. It is the clear-eyed realization that certain experiences retain their meaning and gravity only when they remain among brothers-in-arms, united by the close solidarity that should bind members of the same family. “

By Antoine Marquet, Lt. Colonel (TE-er)
I don’t think former legionnaires are often asked why they talk so little about their time in the Legion.

Quite naturally, anyone who spontaneously started talking about their Legion past would quickly be considered someone “who just talks about their campaigns.”
The mystery that long surrounded—not to say shrouded—the French Foreign Legion, as well as the silence maintained by the Institution itself about itself until recently, hardly encouraged the outside world to ask veterans about their time in its ranks.

Unfortunately, for some years now, it’s no longer even necessary to ask the veterans: the Legion is increasingly exposing itself. Sometimes, under the guise of solidarity or fundraising appeals, it almost holds out the alms bowl, like a churchwarden of olden times; it reveals itself, shows itself, lays itself bare.

” Above all, the Foreign Legion remains a French army unit with a specific recruitment process, whose unique status has gradually diminished since the professionalization of the armed forces. Today, infantry regiments fulfill the same missions as foreign regiments, and the integration between the Legion and units of the general army has become so close that some Legionnaires reinforce the latter's overseas regiments, sometimes even receiving the green and red pennant in place of their own emblem.

Social media is now overflowing with green and red. Everyone is offering their opinion, often the most fanciful. We even see a corporal posting videos explaining the Legion or soliciting public support for his cause, undoubtedly with the approval of the command.

It is true that, for a long time, the social role of the Legion has extended well beyond the active service of its legionnaires. But this cannot serve as an excuse for the gradual unveiling of this great institution.

For the Legion itself sometimes fails to uphold an essential part of its own moral contract: guaranteeing the volunteer recruit the anonymity to which he is legitimately entitled.

And what do we see today? Entire sections publicly displayed after only two months of training during the presentation of the white kepi. The bridges once severed with their former lives are immediately re-established. We even recently witnessed a volunteer rush into his partner's arms after donning his white kepi and shouting out the Legionnaire's Code of Honor, which its creator had intended to be confidential, almost like a ritual among initiates.

Even the Eagle of Camerone—that magnificent bronze medal passed down each year from regiment to regiment without any other special ceremony—has ended up being publicly displayed. From the moment the first pair of briefs is seen at the recruitment center until their disappearance from the checks, the legionnaire is displayed, explained, dissected, sensationalized by the media, and then replaced.

So why would the veterans still recount their lives when they have already become a spectacle accessible to all?