The mercenary’s trade is something completely unaccustomed that has come about in Ukraine following perpetually rising unemployment and our unstable economic situation. Young people who have found no application for their skills under current conditions begin to trade with the only thing they have, their lives. We have already seen on television some Ukrainian citizens detained in Chechnya, where they defended the Wahhabi creed thousands of kilometers away from Ukraine. However, they were not even sure they would get the money they had earned with their own blood. Others find what they think the best solution to test their strength in the French Foreign Legion surrounded with a romantic halo, hoping that service in it will be the prelude to a military career.
Demand calls forth supply. Some firms have already sprung up in Odesa, offering assistance to sign up for this military organization about which they seem to know only that it recruits mercenaries. “Higher education, specialties: communications engineer; driver of A, B, and C categories; familiar with many types of weapons; good health.” This is the resume filled out by a 32-year-old Oleh B. from Odesa, only one of those who expressed his readiness to enlist.
What is required from those who want to become legionnaires? What is required above all by those who take the resumes is money. Of course, in advance and preferably in US dollars. For the deal is being concluded with a foreign organization and is connected with going abroad.
There is not a word about the unimaginable ordeal in store for foreign Legionnaires sent to the hottest of hot spots or, moreover, about the wounds, including fatal ones, they could receive. But reality is rather prosaic and very little resembles the picture painted in the promotional literature. Moreover, the Foreign Legion works with no employment agencies. Hence, any assurances that, after paying a certain amount in dollars, the candidate soldier of fortune will be guaranteed a place in a specific French military unit are in fact nothing but a simple con.
Moreover, if the so-called agency gives the candidate legionnaire an “invitation” and the address of a recruiting station in France, this means absolutely nothing. The candidate will have to get the French visa and buy a one-way ticket (or, in all probability, also a return ticket if the recruiting board rejects him) completely on his own .
In addition, the El Dorado so richly painted in the promotion posters turns out in reality to be entirely different. For example, a mercenary who meets all the requirements is entitled to fixed pay of $250-300 a month in the first few years of service or, to be more exact, slavery. And one cannot run away, for an escape is tantamount to desertion and punishable by several years in prison at best. At worst, one will get the deal of a wartime traitor.
What it is to serve in the French Foreign Legion is best known by those who once donned legionnaire’s fatigues but then managed with indescribable difficulty to get out. The contract with the legion is signed for five years after the recruit has passed a host of tests: in fitness, health, psychic and emotional stability, etc. About seven out of every eight candidates drop out and have to get money somewhere for a return ticket. But if you managed to enlist, you can say you have entered the first circle of hell. In fact, the first three years in the legion is approximately the same that Soviet army recruits experienced in the first three months, doing basic training under the tender mercies of drill sergeants. In other words, the downtrodden dogface has to come running to fulfill the slightest whim of not only the corporals and warrant officers but also of everyone else who has served even a few months longer.
After the contract has been signed, the recruit totally belongs to the legion. Its command decides everything: when and how much the legionnaire must eat, how long to sleep, and what to do every waking hour. Notably, sleep takes the least time: from 3 to 4 hours a night. Time is money and, accordingly, expensive, so it is spent on such things as many-kilometer cross-country runs, Three day marches with complete outfits on, running the obstacle course, and practically daily guard duty. The legion command thinks that the more a soldier is punished, the more disciplined he will be. Thus there is no shortage of punishment.
When one says that after the soldier has signed his contract he fully belongs to the legions, this is true in the most literal sense. The legions really crosses off all things past: a legionnaire has no home, family, or name. He is given a new name here, and if a soldier does not forget his family on his own, he will be made to do so. A legionnaire is part of the military mechanism, a virtual screw in the combat machine, nothing more. And this screw means nothing by itself, but it is tightened until it interlocks inseparably with the whole system.
And whoever lives through all this and stays alive has just struck five years off his life (the minimum contract term). However, before leaving the legion, the soldier will have his modest pay still reduced by food and clothing deductions. And only then will the legionnaire become aware he has lost not only his past but also his future. For the Criminal Code of Ukraine, like that of most civilized countries, has articles laying down a long prison term for what seemed to somebody as an innocent prank or, at any rate, an entirely personal matter. In particular, Article 63-1 on mercenaries mandates 5 to 12 years of incarceration for participating in the military conflicts of other states with the purpose of personal gain. Article 187-7 on participation in the military conflicts of other states punishes the guilty with a prison term of up to five years.
Such are the probable epilogues to the romantic careers of our soldiers of fortune.
COMMENT
As Anne Stankevitch, press attache of the Embassy of the French Republic, told The Day, “There are no official organizations recruiting Ukrainian citizens to the French Foreign Legion. The Foreign Legion is not recruiting anybody in Ukraine. And even if there are organizations involved in this kind of activity, they have absolutely nothing to do with us. But if some individuals want to get information on the Foreign Legion, they can write the embassy.”
