That sounds good. 5 years is a good sum of time. I think finishing with trade skills would be good for transition to civilian.
How do you get onto the courses once you are in the Legion/assigned to a unit?
If you intend just doing 5 there's no point asking. For example : sniper, mortar or anti tank aren't of much use for that kind of stuff in civvie
To get on a course (
stage) of any kind, good conduct and a decent French (a lot of classroom courses and theory with exams during and at the end of the
stage). It means, for a Serb, who knows it all about the Legion but speaks and, writes in English, he won't get any if he cannot grasp French. Just saying...
Hmm... Will full 5 years (or 10, 15) reduce your chances of being killed? I don't know... probably more experience is better but things those days are changing fast and no training can prepare you for many situations where you can find your self in. Of course any training is better than no training, good long training is better than crappy short one, but biggest killer of soldiers today are IEDs . Really there is no much protection against that apart from knowing how they are made, hove they can be set and how to avoid them. Any army who don't train their men on that matter, are really far behind.
The dude i was referring to, Pop Sorin, was Romanian. An orphan brought up in deplorable circumstances, but was jovial (at least it seemed so, but who knows ?). He wasn't the only one like that. In March 91, I was Milan anti tank and I ran the club compagnie. Before, it was a hot dog and beer, with me, it was hot dog, burgers, French fries, hamburgers, Cantonese rice, spring rolls,
merguez and other stuff, Kro, Heineken, whisky, Coca Cola, Orangina and Perrier, TV (many rooms hadn't TVs) and videos. There were dudes like Pop and others who came with their stools (I didn't have enough, so they brought theirs from their own room). They would install to watch the 2 vids (every morning I would go to the
bibliothèque/foyer to select the films). They would watch them eyes wide opened (some, probably had never seen a colour TV before, never mind a vhs video). Week ends, no officers or
sous-off', just the
bureau de semaine. Lights out : 22.30 h and was meant to close the club. I didn't, and we watched a third vid, in silence, just in case. At times, especially at the end of the month, many had no money. I would give them credit and if the company 2IC, my boss, had learnt this it meant
taule for me. Good lad was Pop, hadn't known any Romanians before him.
From what I heard from different sources, he was killed in the Comoros in 1995, during Bob Denards failed
coup d'état. No idea where his body lies and I don't think many in Romania care. Age approx 23/25.
RIP wherever you lay, Pop