I have lived overseas when I was young and had to learn Spanish, French, and German to make it as a kid. It was an eclectic neighborhood, what can I say? Did I learn all 3? Hell, no. I worked on English hard enough.
French was not my strongest. I still know and use Spanish (Castilian) but I have lost a lot of my French over time through disuse. I have been back twice and most of it worked. German is still not a language. It's a series of words followed by a verb, if you are lucky to hear it.
My impression is that this Frenchman is a bit flowery with even his own language, which having been the diplomatic language before English took it over, is flowery in itself. The French have always been in love with their language. I understand why someone in the comments thought it was written by an advertising firm, which I don't think it was. It was written by someone trying to impress with his use of the language, as a student would a thesis or paper.
A Frenchman would not use many words I saw that were quite "over the top." (Sanglant means "bloody" but in a nicer form (like sanguine would be to us) and he uses that word in the wrong context, as if to rouse sentiment. Not sure a French soldier would do that, but he might.) I would also say the translation is not word for word or even sentence to sentence. It seems gisted like some of these computer translations. I run into the same problem with Chinese (Mandarin).
The guy is right about his observation that American men are huge to French and even Englishmen. I got the comment when I was in London and Paris. something like "You must have eaten your cereal when you were young," meaning Wheaties, as I climbed into a taxi in London. I was a lot more muscular as we all were when we were dodging bullets. And he is right about the Marines and Army charging toward an ambush or firefight but not SpecOps. But this is Afghanistan, not Vietnam so I bow to his wisdom. We were all taught to charge and lay down covering fire but you learn quickly to watch your head and your ass sticking up in the air, and to stop and think where the fire is coming from first. Again, I think the translator failed in his translation there. He was trying to Americanize some words that should not be Americanized and made it sound like we were all Rambos. Not true, but partially. The French version I read is much more gallant. I like it actually. It also has some talk of precise military radio traffic protocol, which is charming when you read it in French. (It starts with: Je maitrise la mise en œuvre, l’utilisation de mon poste radio individuel. I mastered the use or implementation of my radio station by myself.) This list lends me to think the guy is legit but you never know. But the list is quite like a French grunt might write. Je maitrise meaning I mastered repeated over and over is really funny but I can see a soldier of any country writing it.
There is a comment by a guy named Boyd in the 101 who says he was mentioned. It would be interesting to see if he gets a response.He gave out his email addy.
I recall a Canadian journalist (not French) who wrote something similar when he felt America's eyes were hanging low about the time of Vietnam and Watergate. It received the same chest thumping results across America. And faded.
My 02.
