All This Has Happened Before...

"We had been told, on leaving our native soil, that we were going to defend the sacred rights confered by us on so many of our citizens settled overseas, so many years of our presence, so many benefits brought by us to populations in need of our assistance and our civilization.

"We were able to verify that all this was true and, because it was true, we did not hesitate to shed our quota of blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes. We regretted nothing, but whereas we over here are inspired by this frame of mind, I am told that in Rome factions and conspiracies are rife, that treachery floursihes, and that many people in their uncertainty and confusion lend a ready ear to the dire temptations of relinquishment... Make haste to reassure me, I beg you, and tell me that our fellow-citizens understand us, support us and protect us as we ourselves are protecting the glory of the Empire

"If it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware the anger of the Legions!"

-Marcus Flavinius, Centurion of the Augusta Legion as quoted by Jean Larteguy in The Centurions

I first read The Centurions seven years ago in the library at West Point. I have not read it since because I do not speak French and English copies range from two hundred to five hundred dollars. The novel depicts not the Centurions of Rome's famed Legions, but the professional soldiers of France fighting in Indochina. It is a very good book but I have always wanted a copy first and foremost so that I could find the glorious quotation the heads this entry in it's entirety.

I was lucky in that Alistair Horne includes the full quotation at the begining of the second part of his book A Savage War of Peace, a history of the French-Algerian war, which I am currently reading (and for which I did not pay five hundred bucks- for those of you with a historical bent, there's a link down and to the right on this very page. Go ahead, it's for a good cause, well at least from MY viewpoint ;).

I was thinking what a wonderful propaganda voiceover this could make; open with images of deploying units for "on leaving our native soil", shift to images of Iraq under Saddam's regime and Afghanistan under the Taliban, then after "was true" shift to images of fighting in both theaters and then boots-rifle helmet arrangements and flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers for "our quota of blood." For factions-conspiracies-treachery- well you can all think of plenty of material in America for that. Article 88 prevents from expounding to heavily on the subject. For "ready ear to the dire temptation of relinquishment," one could show peace protesters. Then close out with some more fighting and some stock footage of our most powerful formations maneuvering and spewing fire. Something dramatic and instrumental would play in the background, but not cheesey and lilting. Precussion, simplicity, the music of war.

Now if I could arrange stuff like this, I might actually enjoy being the PAO. Sadly, I have to go now to write my Family Readiness Group Newsletter instead. If my job were any more nutless I'd be a gelding.