FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 96, 26 April 1933, Page 12

FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

PRAISE BY AMERICAN. “MOST MALIGNED REGIMENT.” “The majority of Foreign Legionaries are college men, and their comfort is the first thoght of their understanding and kindly officers,” according to a statement by Mr. Philip Ortiz, an American who has founded a society called “The Friends of the Foreign Legion” to tell the world the truth about “the most maligned regiment in the world.” A year ago Mr Ortiz sent his 18-year-old son to college at Grenoble. Shortly afterward his son announced that he had joined the Foreign Legion. Filled with dismay, Mr. Ortiz at once went to Sidi-bel-Abbes to “help his son out of the mess into which he had got himself.” “I did not visit the Legion for 24 hours. I lived with it for four months in tho outposts as well as in central depots.” said Mr. Ortiz. “As a result of my observations I am the proudest father in the world. I think my son has embarked on a great career in the greatest body of men in the world I want him to stay his full five years and win a commission, so that he can return to command the men whose friendship he has already won in tho ranks. “I met half-a-dozcn Britons, but there aren’t many,* as the British Army goes far enough afield to satisfy any man’s craving for adventure. Discipline is stern —but'so it is in the Brigade of Guards.”