Speaker 1: Hello folks, and happy Saturday to you. This week's Selects
Speaker 1: episode is my pick. This is Chuck by the Way,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go with do people really run
Speaker 1: off to join the French Foreign Legion or more typically said,
Speaker 1: do people really run off to join the French Foreign Legion?
Speaker 1: Is from March seventh, twenty thirteen, and honestly I picked
Speaker 1: this one because it was kind of a cool episode
Speaker 1: that I didn't know much about the French Foreign Legion
Speaker 1: aside from those supercowl hats that you get when you
Speaker 1: sign up, and people do really run off to join
Speaker 1: the French Foreign Legion. That's the spoiler. So check it
Speaker 1: out and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark and there's twelves will be Chuck Bryant, which
Speaker 1: makes this Stuff you Should Know The Lightning Quick Edition?
Speaker 1: Is this Lightning Quick? Yes? Because of lightning? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a like tornadoes and stuff coming in, so
Speaker 1: it's like holding out at the Okay Corral as the
Speaker 1: storm rolls in. But well, we'd also like to get
Speaker 1: out of the Okay Corral before the storm was getting here,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the point. Yeah, you were saying there
Speaker 1: was a tornado flipping cars on like seventy five up
Speaker 1: north apparently. And I know my dog Buckley is at
Speaker 1: home just waiting to pee all over the place when
Speaker 1: the thunderstarts. So if I can be there and hold him,
Speaker 1: he's fine. The French Foreign Legion, chuck, um. They are
Speaker 1: a fighting force, a military fighting force that one young
Speaker 1: man by the name of Jean Claude van dam ran
Speaker 1: off and joined. Did he really in the movies? Crap?
Speaker 1: I got you. It totally got me. I was like,
Speaker 1: I never knew. Can you imagine? No, he was? It
Speaker 1: was in the movies. He wasn't really a legionaire. It's
Speaker 1: a bummer. What movie was it? I think legion? Was
Speaker 1: there a movie called Legion or Legionaire? Never heard of it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's a he's a legionaire. He can he is?
Speaker 1: Actually you can tell. Well, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: that there are that many like big fans, but I'll
Speaker 1: bet his big fans are like like big time John
Speaker 1: Claude van Daman, Oh yes, um, like Steven Seagal's fans probably, yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: so just a hardcore you know yeah. Um, but you
Speaker 1: could tell that John Claude van Dam was in this
Speaker 1: movie because he's wearing a hat with a little cape
Speaker 1: in the back. Yeah. The KP is that what it's called. Yeah,
Speaker 1: spelled k EPI pronounced kpe. And they still wear those
Speaker 1: and uh, you know it's a it's a tradition that
Speaker 1: is still true today. The little flat cap very stiff
Speaker 1: and rigid. Ye. And uh, they don't always have the capes,
Speaker 1: you know, when they're out where they need them, they will. Well.
Speaker 1: The reason that they would have them is because for
Speaker 1: the better part of two centuries, the French Foreign Legion
Speaker 1: was stationed in Algeria. Yeah. Uh. And the reason they
Speaker 1: were stationed there is because that's where their headquarters were
Speaker 1: almost from the moment of inception of this um, this
Speaker 1: military group. Yeah. And the reason they were stay they're
Speaker 1: from inception was because they were a bunch of ne'er
Speaker 1: do well criminals in many cases, and so they're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, you guys are great and you're super tough.
Speaker 1: Let's move you to Algeria. Yeah, to help our colonization
Speaker 1: efforts and get you out of France. Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about the history first? Yeah, well today, let's
Speaker 1: talk about today just for one second. Over there are
Speaker 1: seven thousand, two hundred and eighty six Legionnaires as of
Speaker 1: December of last year to twenty twelve and to the date,
Speaker 1: to the date, to this date, uh, thirty five thousand
Speaker 1: have died in battle over the years. I saw that,
Speaker 1: which is not that bad. But it's a small group,
Speaker 1: you know, they're seven thousand isn't much, right, and they
Speaker 1: they are the fighting force in the world that has
Speaker 1: seen more continuous action than any other. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: they fight constantly. They've been fighting constantly. Well, and they're
Speaker 1: bad dudes. Yeah, like they're they even say in this article.
Speaker 1: And they're well known to be much tougher than the
Speaker 1: regular French army, right because they're not well they're actually
Speaker 1: I don't know much that has to do with it,
Speaker 1: but they're known for being tough dudes. Yeah, and they're
Speaker 1: also a special forces unit. Yeah, basically, no women. When
Speaker 1: we say dudes, we can say dudes. Yeah, there's never
Speaker 1: been a Fridge foreign Legionnaire who's a woman, and they are.
Speaker 1: They've been in just about every conflict that the French
Speaker 1: have been in. Yeah, since eighteen thirty and did you
Speaker 1: know that the French Foreign Legion invaded Mexico in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one and stayed there until eighteen sixty five when
Speaker 1: they're finally beaten back. No, I didn't know. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: tried to assassinate the president and install an Austrian prince
Speaker 1: named Maximilian as the ruler of Mexico. Has set it
Speaker 1: up as a French puppet state. I wonder if that
Speaker 1: had any influence on Culinarily speaking, I don't know French food.
Speaker 1: You don't see much French stuff pop up in Mexico
Speaker 1: like you do in like Vietnam during that colonial period,
Speaker 1: you know, or Indos. Yeah? Why s k okay? So
Speaker 1: do you want to go to the history? Should we
Speaker 1: start out how these guys start? Well? In uh eighteen thirty, Josh,
Speaker 1: we tell you a little story about a guy named
Speaker 1: King Louis Philippe. Okay, Uh, it's known as the July Revolution.
Speaker 1: He replaced King Charles ten and X X and H
Speaker 1: after the Bourbon monarchy fell, and this was Parisian radicals
Speaker 1: were involved in this overthrow. So even though he was
Speaker 1: made king in large part because of these radicals and
Speaker 1: because of radicalism, these radicals were some tough guys, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them were you know, it kind of
Speaker 1: brought in this criminal element in some cases. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to say they were bad guys,
Speaker 1: but maybe they were bad guys. Well. The King Louis
Speaker 1: Philippe thought that they were a threat to the monarchy
Speaker 1: because you know, he had gotten to the throne by
Speaker 1: these radicals, and it had attracted radicals from all over Europe,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them were very soldier like yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was like or former soldiers period, and he said,
Speaker 1: welcome to France. Let me figure out what to do
Speaker 1: with you. I can't legally make you a part of
Speaker 1: the French army. Yeah, so how about I just make
Speaker 1: a foreign legion made up of foreign dissidents, foreign nationals
Speaker 1: and send him elsewhere. And they were pretty happy with
Speaker 1: that plan. It was March of eighteen thirty one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he laid out his eight articles and pretty much that
Speaker 1: was what the foreign legion was from, who they were
Speaker 1: to be, where were they were to train, what were
Speaker 1: there to where? And a lot of the traditions were
Speaker 1: established in that very first set of articles. Um. And
Speaker 1: then included in that chuck was one that said that
Speaker 1: you had to UM to check for a birth certificate,
Speaker 1: a certificate of good life manners, and a certificate from
Speaker 1: a military authority saying that this person is a good soldier.
Speaker 1: And you had to have all that if you were
Speaker 1: going to accept a recruit that or um. It was
Speaker 1: up to the commandant's discretion. Yeah. That it reminded me
Speaker 1: of like how they'll be a paragraph and a legal
Speaker 1: contract that says all these things. At the very end
Speaker 1: it'll say like or we could just change our mind
Speaker 1: about all that, right, So basically, yeah, we need all
Speaker 1: these papers and documents. And that was in our article
Speaker 1: seven or article six, and then the seventh article said,
Speaker 1: or just let them in if you' you know, have
Speaker 1: a good feeling right about them exactly. And I worry
Speaker 1: about the papers so much. And that led to this
Speaker 1: thing called UM and known nimatmat yes, which is anonymity
Speaker 1: in French. And it says that you can join the
Speaker 1: French Foreign Legion under an assumed name, because we're going
Speaker 1: to give you an assumed name one way or another.
Speaker 1: For the first year of your service in the French
Speaker 1: Foreign Legion. You need to basically take on an assumed name.
Speaker 1: You're leaving your old identity behind. And that's a really strange,
Speaker 1: unusual aspect of the Legion that still exists today. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was mandatory until just a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Until twenty ten, you had to sign up under a
Speaker 1: different name, and then at the end of that year
Speaker 1: you could go through a process called military regularization of
Speaker 1: the situation, which basically meant you could get your old
Speaker 1: papers back from your home country and go back to
Speaker 1: your old name. Right, And you can still do all that,
Speaker 1: it's just not mandatory any longer. No, But a lot
Speaker 1: of guys it's like the fresh start, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what they're looking for. A lot of men who
Speaker 1: join the army, and that's one of the every country.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that the French Foreign Legion
Speaker 1: touts when you when you join, it's that we're a
Speaker 1: place you can have a second chance. Yeah, forget your past,
Speaker 1: even forget your name. Minor criminal records. I mean back
Speaker 1: in the day they would accept major criminals. Now they're
Speaker 1: a little more selective and they'll overlook like a minor
Speaker 1: criminal record, but nothing like they want accept murderers and
Speaker 1: things like that. Right, And for a very long time,
Speaker 1: they would accept nothing, no one but foreign nationals. You
Speaker 1: couldn't be French and join the French Foreign Legion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could join the army, but not the foreign Legion. Right.
Speaker 1: They recently changed that, so you can be French and
Speaker 1: enjoin it, right, Yeah, And you can gain your French
Speaker 1: citizenship as a foreign national by serving what three years?
Speaker 1: Three years in good standing? Yeah, and I think you
Speaker 1: have to go back to your original name and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you if you're going to get citizenship, you can't do
Speaker 1: it under your declared name. Right. And you're talking about
Speaker 1: that the what was it called where you go through
Speaker 1: that process of the military regularization of the situation. Right,
Speaker 1: it's such a weird name for name change. It really is,
Speaker 1: um But it's not just the name change. It's basically
Speaker 1: like that represents the end of your first year, and
Speaker 1: it represents the end of the French Foreign Legion owning
Speaker 1: you during this time. During your first year, you cannot
Speaker 1: have a civilian bank account, you can't get married, you
Speaker 1: can't wear civilian clothes even off duty. You can't buy
Speaker 1: a car, you can't travel abroad on leave to anywhere
Speaker 1: but France. You have to wear your uniform. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, in some form or fashion you have
Speaker 1: to wear a uniform. So yeah, it's um they own
Speaker 1: you for the first year. It's definitely harder than the
Speaker 1: French Army. Like you said, yeah, and whatever status. If
Speaker 1: you're married and you join the French Foreign Legion, you
Speaker 1: have to enlist as a single man, right, So I
Speaker 1: don't know if I guess you can remain married technically,
Speaker 1: but the papers say that you're a single man. I
Speaker 1: would imagine if you run off to the French Foreign Legion,
Speaker 1: probably the marriage might be on shaky ground as it is,
Speaker 1: or you're not married. Yeah, this good point. They're probably
Speaker 1: not of like already married men. Doesn't seem like a
Speaker 1: very family supportive place. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: you are getting away from a situation or something like that. Honey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to deny your existence and change my name,
Speaker 1: but it's really worth it because I want to be
Speaker 1: a legionnaire and where and where the kp right and
Speaker 1: gain the respect of the French. You think I'm just kidding, Well,
Speaker 1: you know what's funny is they are I read an article.
Speaker 1: There's an article in the December twenty twelve Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: called the Expendables. That's pretty interesting. It's about the French
Speaker 1: Foreign Legion what they're doing now. Yeah, I saw some
Speaker 1: of that. You remember in our gold episode talked about
Speaker 1: illicit gold mining in Guiana. Yeah, apparently one of the
Speaker 1: things that Foreign Legion's doing now is they're fighting those
Speaker 1: gold miners now, shutting that down. That's one of the
Speaker 1: things they're doing because Afghanistan's winding down for the French,
Speaker 1: so they're kind of looking for new stuff to do,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the things new guys to go
Speaker 1: beat up. Right, Your first contract if you join up
Speaker 1: as a legionnaire, is a minimum of five years and
Speaker 1: pay for a corporal starting out is one forty three
Speaker 1: I guess euros per month plus of course, you know
Speaker 1: all room and board, but that's your take onme pay
Speaker 1: right or not. I don't know about takeome, but that's
Speaker 1: your salary and you get forty five days leave and
Speaker 1: then you know there is a path to prosperity to
Speaker 1: some degree in success just like any other army, you
Speaker 1: can work your way up through the officer ranks and
Speaker 1: after that first five years, successive contracts are six months
Speaker 1: to five years and I'm not sure how they determine that,
Speaker 1: whether it's up to you, like if you're like, I
Speaker 1: just want to go six months of time here, guys, gotcha?
Speaker 1: Or I'm not sure. I couldn't actually find any information
Speaker 1: on that. If they're like, no, you you must sign
Speaker 1: for three years, right, six months whatever. Yeah, they're like
Speaker 1: you'll probably be dead by then anyway, so and we'll
Speaker 1: keep all of your euros. So in that article, one
Speaker 1: of the things I was that I came across was
Speaker 1: that the the the legionnaires view themselves and apparently are
Speaker 1: viewed by the French as that's why the articles called
Speaker 1: the expendables as basically there to fight and kill and die, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that there's a lot of honor in dying, even
Speaker 1: if it's unnecessarily. But they're just they kind of are nihilistic.
Speaker 1: I get the impression. And I think they even used
Speaker 1: that word. They're nihilists really, well hilists, not say nihilists. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did read part of the article though, and they
Speaker 1: said that normal people don't join the French form legion right.
Speaker 1: They said they're all just a little little off, yeah,
Speaker 1: which you know, good about. They're tough dudes, yeah, and
Speaker 1: the span The Spanish tried the same thing in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty they tried to form the Spanish Foreign Legion and
Speaker 1: it didn't take so now it's just called the Spanish Legion.
Speaker 1: It's made up of Spaniards. Yeah. And some folks say
Speaker 1: America could try something like a foreign legion with the
Speaker 1: influx of non Americans in this country to maybe serve
Speaker 1: under our regular armies. And I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: ever been pitched. Patial citizenship should be in the Dream Act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why not, dude, I don't know. I'm sure people would
Speaker 1: be like, this is why not? Well, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: email us later. Yeah. I didn't consider it. It just
Speaker 1: came to my head. Um, you got anything else? No,
Speaker 1: I want a KPE. I'll get you one for your birthday.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when those were like hip in the
Speaker 1: eighties with the breakdancing. Uh? Yeah, those are awesome. It's
Speaker 1: so funny what different cultures latch onto from different eras. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, somebody said that will look very cool
Speaker 1: when I'm doing a headspin. Yeah, and the KPE was adopted.
Speaker 1: Awesome breaking Ohio, like the Painter's cap and uh. When
Speaker 1: I was just growing up, the painter's cap and the
Speaker 1: bicycle caps were very big in the eighties. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the bike caps with the billful. I had a couple of,
Speaker 1: like Italian ons. I just thought it was so cool.
Speaker 1: What was the name of that one brand that everybody
Speaker 1: had the bike had, you know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: trek No, it was like a French name, I believe. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh, I think I had one though.
Speaker 1: I thought like, it's similar to the word champion, shamano
Speaker 1: or something. But it wasn't that Japanese. And I know
Speaker 1: what you mean, it's gonna come to me. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it is Japanese. I'll bet it's Italian or something,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying it's Japanese shimano. Yeah. I love it
Speaker 1: when we do these things though, where we can't think
Speaker 1: of something, because we always get emails where people like, oh,
Speaker 1: screaming in my home the name we're sorry for all
Speaker 1: of Yeah, that sounds close. It's not. It's not so
Speaker 1: close that that we're not going to get emails. But
Speaker 1: those of you screaming right now, settle down, grab you
Speaker 1: only get a hold of yourselves podcast If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about the foreign legion. You can type
Speaker 1: that word or those words into the search barhostuffworks dot
Speaker 1: com and that will bring up this fine article. There
Speaker 1: you go, and I said search bar. So it was
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I guess before we get into
Speaker 1: that chuck, you want a message from our sponsor. Let's
Speaker 1: do that watch SKA should know. And now it's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Yeah, this is from Donato and it's
Speaker 1: about autopsies. Dudes, just finished listening to how on autopsies work.
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention a couple of things. I'm currently
Speaker 1: in law enforcement and have attended a few of them.
Speaker 1: My first one was really fascinating. The emmy tried to
Speaker 1: get me to vomit, like handing me a brain to
Speaker 1: pass to his assistant, but it actually really turned out
Speaker 1: to be extremely exciting for me. So screw you, emmy.
Speaker 1: I'm not vomiting. Look at me. I'm juggling in sprain.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. I wanted to point out you did not
Speaker 1: mention the extraction of vitreous fluid from the eyeballs using
Speaker 1: a needle. That part was a little freaky to me,
Speaker 1: I have to admit, and after a couple of times
Speaker 1: asked why it was done, which leads me to to
Speaker 1: toxicological Toxicological examination. Fluids and samples from some organs are
Speaker 1: sent for examination in these cases, and in my experience,
Speaker 1: Emmy's will not provide a final autopsy before toxicology results
Speaker 1: come back. And lastly, the difference between cause and manner
Speaker 1: of death COD and m D. They are used interchangeably often,
Speaker 1: but COD is the physiological mechanism responsible for death, where
Speaker 1: MD is the explanation how the COD came to be.
Speaker 1: For example, asphyxia is the COD and is the MD
Speaker 1: if a person is smothered with their pillow gota. So
Speaker 1: CD can be considered purely medical, while the MD is
Speaker 1: a combination of medical and investigative and evil and evil.
Speaker 1: So I hope it did not double tap something you
Speaker 1: guys covered. Oh that's an old timing reference. Nice call
Speaker 1: out to green Berets Delta Delta Force. Thank you, Donado,
Speaker 1: Thanks Donato. Appreciate that he's written in before. Awesome, Thanks
Speaker 1: for writing in again. Has he made listener mail before? No,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what he wrote in before after. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just winked at chuck Um. If you want to
Speaker 1: write in you can write in as many times as possible.
Speaker 1: See if you can get on listener mail twice. I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone ever has, right, well, Sarah the Amazing eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 1: probably fifteen year old. Yeah, that's right, Thank you for
Speaker 1: correcting me. And Sarah, come on, we haven't had a
Speaker 1: letter in a while. Yeah, it's been a long time.
Speaker 1: We don't know how drama class is going and all that. Ease,
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