best of luck .. I mean the Legion have Engineers too who jump. Divers .etc. might give you something for later. Start a diving school when you retire. maybe stuff like that.
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My first week in Aubagne
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Yeah it would be a good thing if a person plans to retire that they have gathered skills they can use to make a living with afterwards.
I definitely won't be coming back to South Africa so it's part of the plan.
spooker
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Seems like a marine paratrooper beret
SnafuSmite
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Rapace will know for sure.
There is info on that badge online connecting it to both the marines and legion so more would be needed, he had his wings too, that was the same as legions not sure if army had same badge in use. His uniform etc is in France so cannot check what else is there.
This was found in one of his tool boxes
When I'm there I'm sure I could give someone in the right department his name and they could shed some light or would it all be locked up in secrecy?
SnafuSmite
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This is really Rapace's thing, he was a French paratrooper. He will know a lot more, the second pic is jump wings, the beret and beret badge looks very much like the 1er RPIMa beret badge.
If I see him online and he hasn't seen this post in about I'll pm him. I can get the dates he was in and waiting on some more info. I have seen numerous info pointing to both legion and army, I know only what I've been told. We also had a cousin that died in the legion not as long ago OK my mistake he was serving not training, getting more info now his name was Patrice but not sure about legion name given. Waiting on more info
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Crawdad
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It's the same badge, but 1er RPIMa wasn't in Algeria AFAIK. It's definitely either a Marine or Colonial Para regiment, though.
(French Colonial units have been rocking the anchor since the 1700's.)
Since he (Kevinza's Gramps) was in Algeria; based on the insignia, he may have been in one of the Colonial Para regiments (2e, 3e, or 6e RPC). 1er REP, 1er RCP, and 9e RCP were there, but would not have had anchor on their badge.
The jump wings are standard french para wings; doesn't really tell us much other than that he was airborne. (Which we knew.)
Haha it's proving difficult to get info on this from my end. But at the end of the day it's just stuff I would like to know it won't change anything and I will earn my own time in the legion. For many years after his service he drank a lot only the last 10 years roughly of his life did he stop the drinking. My mother told me a story of when he was in Africa and some of the crap he saw but was never told by him he never spoke of it.
Crawdad thank you for your input your knowledge is greatly helpful
But he was a bad a$$, even in his 60s he was super fast with his hands and when he landed a strike it f*cken hurt. The guys from those days were a different breed
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Crawdad
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Pas de probleme. But like Snafu mentioned, Rapace is more or less the resident expert on all things related to regular French Paras. There's more than a few Lègion Paras on the forum , as well, along with a couple of Algeria Vets. Any one of whom have probably forgotten more than I ever knew on the subject.
Slightly off topic; referring back to the anchor as an insignia: here's a picture of French marine uniforms from the early 1700's-- what they would have worn fighting the Iroquois or Chickasaw in New France and Louisiane. Note the anchor on the turnbacks in figure 4 (top right):
The uniforms were quite different back then but I suppose warfare was also different back then.
Currently searching for information about those times to try link info together, did confirm with family he said legion 2e but need to figure out if he started off there or ended up there etc as there was alot of movement and things going on back then. Roughly between 1959 and 1968
Will definitely pm rapace, found out more info but what is listed online in history sections doesn't coincide with the stories so maybe stuff that not supposed to be published hense the confusion about so much