This account is by our comrade Wolf Zinc, who recently passed away. With his characteristic attention to detail and understated humor, he recounts several episodes from his command at Ali-Sabieh in 1977.
Through these memories, sometimes comical, sometimes improbable, emerges the man he was: an officer attentive to his men, capable of remaining calm in the face of the unexpected, and always faithful to a certain sense of duty.
From pigs to cheetahs, and finally to the lion Chifta, these anecdotes reveal far more than they initially seem about daily life, the spirit of the Legion, and the responsibility of command.
To reread these pages today is to rediscover his voice, his gaze, and to share one last time those moments he knew how to describe with such simplicity and precision.
Louis Perez y Cid

By Wolf Zinc (LCL†)
On June 23, 1977, I took command of the 3rd Company of the 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade in Ali-Sabieh. The roster included, in addition to the military personnel and their families, an impressive menagerie: pigs, donkeys, two cheetahs, and a lion.

The pigs were intended to supplement the legionnaires' rations.

The cheetahs, roaming freely in the camp, were blamed for all sorts of problems by the local population. On July 1st, I had them caged.

The donkeys, initially intended to feed the lion, were spared at the insistent request of an officer's wife. On October 3rd, the jenny gave birth to a foal named Partagas, in honor of his spiritual father, a BOI officer who was particularly well-liked in the Company. Chifta, a highwayman in Somali, is a magnificent lion. He lives in a cage opposite the company commander's office on a small hill. The day after the change of command, the corporal, the lion's keeper, having overindulged in the nighttime festivities, decides to sleep in the lion's cage. I am alerted by the corporal's howls as the lion lies down on top of him. My second-in-command, Captain Millet, watches the scene, ready to shoot the animal with his pistol. Eventually, the lion tires of it, and the corporal finishes his nap in the cage.

In September 1977, Colonel Coullon, the commanding officer, informs me of the sad news: the Ali-Sabieh camp will be handed over to the Djiboutian army. I must leave a pristine quarter, establish a new camp within the Gabode district, the regimental headquarters, evacuate my men and their families, as well as all the equipment, but not the animals. My friend, Captain Derousseaux de Medrano, commander of the Ouhea Reconnaissance Squadron, kindly offers to take charge of our animals. The pigs and donkeys pose no problem.

The transport of the cheetahs results in the accidental death of one of the big cats.
On the other hand, Chifta is causing us concern. Having set up a transport cage next to the lion's, with a live goat inside, we hope the lion will take up residence there, attracted by this prey. A sergeant, armed with a rifle, stands on the transport cage to close it at the opportune moment. For several days, the goat's bleating does not bother our lion in the slightest. Warrant Officer Reul, my company sergeant, suggested using the fire hose to push the lion away. Chifta stoically took his shower and didn't flinch.

We then called the veterinarian from Djibouti to sedate the animal. Warrant Officer Mundhenke, the head nurse from Gabode, brought the veterinarian's pistol and the anesthetic. Of course, the pistol didn't work. Courageously, Mundhenke went into the cage and injected the drug with a syringe. Chifta still didn't flinch. After three injections, he collapsed. Mundhenke, thinking he had overdosed, performed CPR on the lion.
Finally, Chifta was in the transport cage, the goat was saved, and the ER loaded the lion onto a truck. Phew! The truck hurtled down the small hill, the brakes failed, the truck overturned, the transport cage opened, and the lion was free. Fortunately, he was too shaken to offer any resistance. Thus, Ali-Sabieh's lion joined his fellow lion, Mao, in his new enclosure in Oueha.