"4. France Ungrateful whinny little people"
Don't judge all of France by Paris. Parisians are an anomaly in France. I have always enjoyed the Hospitality, and Most especially the French Women. It was VERY good to be an American Soldier in Europe in the 80's and 90's. French Soldiers are a riot to party with and are extremely generous as are most Soldiers from our Ally countries.
It's sort of funny. In 1994 my unit was scheduled to deploy to Macedonia for Operation Camp Able Sentry. Due to the tensions in the world at the time our orders were changed and we were elevated in alert status for another theater. It didn't pan out, so our training schedule for 94 was scrapped. Subsequently we had a Great deal of time off. So I put 60k Kilometers on my German made Escort GT and traveled all over Europe.
I went to an annual tribute march in Belgium that commemorates all the Veterans of the 2 battles of the Marne during WW1. Soldiers and Civilians from all the Countries that participated in the battle are represented. After each day's 30k march all the participants gather in Large tents and party their butts off all night. Every night all the American, British, Canadian, and Australian Soldiers would get together and get Roaring Drunk. As we occupied about 20 tables many English speaking German, French, Swedish, etc etc soldiers would join in. I speak German (badly) and French even worse, but I tell you it was one hell of a Party. There were fights sure. There always are when you have that much testosterone floating about mixed in with generous portions of Beer, and booze. But they were few and among the morons. The Noncoms, and officers would typically watch until someone got knocked on their tail section and then break it up. Tell the Privates to make nice and then carry on with our whenching. (there was much Whenching!)
Every time I see a post about how smart one country is, or how much better another country is I think of those parties. I remember how much we are all the same regardless of our residence, and think of how limited the people that think such things are. There we were, thousands of Soldiers. Fighting men trained to be professional Killers partying together as if there were never a battle, never a war, and never a Jerk off Politician with Global ambitions. If only some of you small minded fools would take a moment to learn more about other cultures and maybe spend a little time behind a rifle would see just how petty, and small your thinking is.
Yeats said it best:
"Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I Guard I do not Love."
