1. I Didn’t Join the French Foreign Legion, but It Helped Rescue Me in Chad
- Author:
- James R. Bullington
- Publication Date:
- 11-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- In talks on the Foreign Service, I’ve often told this story about the reaction back home to my new career: After several months of training in Washington, I visited Chattanooga over the July 4, 1963, holiday. At a barbeque hosted by my parents, people were curious about what I was doing since I had graduated from college. “Why, I’ve joined the Foreign Service,” I proudly announced to the first couple that asked. Their eyes widened and their jaws dropped in consternation. “Now why in HAIL would yew go and do a thaing like that?” asked the husband. Further conversation revealed that they mistook the Foreign Service for the Foreign Legion (about which they had recently seen some old Hollywood movies on TV), and they couldn’t imagine why I would want to go and fight for the French army in the Sahara Desert. Among my parents’ friends and neighbors, the American Foreign Service was totally unknown, but most Americans were familiar with the French Foreign Legion because of numerous movies about it from the 1920s through the 1960s. The most notable was Beau Geste, released in 1939.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Civil War, Diplomacy, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Chad