This is from a Marine in Bosnia._
Note the signature, it's the best part,_ but read it last:
A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia): A French army officer walked up to me in the PX, and told me he thought we (Americans) were a bunch of cowboys and were going to provoke a war._ He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to count on the support of
_France. I told him that it didn't surprise me._ Since we had come to France's _rescue in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Cold War, their ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface at some point in the near future anyway. That is why France is a third-rate military power with a socialist economy and a bunch of
limp wrists for soldiers. I additionally told him that America, being a nation of deeds and action, not words, would do whatever it had to do, and France's support was only for show anyway._ Just like in ALL NATO exercises, the US would_ shoulder 85%
of the burden, as evidenced by the fact that the French officer was shopping in the American PX, and not the other way around. He began to get belligerent at that point , and I told him if he would like to, I would meet him outside in front of the Burger King
and thrash him senseless in front of the entire Multi-National Brigade East, thus demonstrating that even the smallest American had more fight in him than_ the average Frenchman. He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff._
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Signed,
_Mary Beth Johnson LtCol, USMC
