13. Chapter – Back to Aubagne

I quit the lieutenant’s office and I already knew where I’m going to spend my next years.  An hour later when the last one chose his regiment, we went down to the company’s club and drunk a beer. The atmosphere was much cooler than before. Everyone could go where he wanted in the regiment. Three of us decided to leave the Legion and go back in his country.

We left the 4° Foreign Regiment a few days later

I didn’t see many sad faces during the short journey to the train station. The voyage to Marseille was calm; we only had to wait an hour in Narbonne. Naturally, the instructors were drinking their coffee at the train station’s bar until we were staying in the cold December outside.  At the afternoon, we arrived to Marseille; a caporal-chef was already waiting for us and brought our section to Aubagne by bus.

The next night we passed in a super-used old room, the shower was cold but it didn’t count anymore. It was a great feeling to be back in Aubagne, where everything has begun last summer. We were happy to leave Castelnaudary and start a real legionnaire life in our future regiment.

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The next morning we had a last rapport with a commandant and he officially announced our next affectation. From that day, I was a member of 2° REG and was proud of myself that I finished the 4 months in Castel.

The rest of the day was just waiting

I didn’t know for what exactly because nobody said what’s the next step. Around 2 PM some guys arrived from 1° REG and took up the 5 legionnaires who chose to go to Laudan.

Our bus arrived a bit later with a Bulgarian corporal and a young Latvian sergeant. They explained us, that in a half an hour we’ll go to Apt (a small town not too far from the regiment) and will stay there for a night. During the explication, a chef and a corporal arrived for the future parachutists.

The chef was 2 meters tall at least and his face looked like a rock for the first time. He started yelling at the guys and send them up to the 2^nd floor to bring their stuffs back because they went to Calvi the next morning.

Some years later, I met my old comrades in a training in Castel and told me that they did push-ups, but on the ferry, the chef was correct and explained them how their instructions are going to continue once they arrived to Corsica. So everything was just for the show.

We left Aubagne and during our journey the sergeant asked us a few questions

Why did we choose 2° REG, what our plans are, which jobs we want to do later etc. He told us that in the next 2 weeks we aren’t going to have too much things to do. Our first training (called CP 04 or promo in 2°REP and FTS in 2°REI) is going to start in January, after Christmas.

I didn’t mind that we had some easy weeks after 4 months in Castel. They told us that we have to buy a phone the first weekend and gave us some useful advices. He said that it’s good to buy a better sleeping bag and a few good pair of socks etc.

We also got some information about the weekdays of the regiment. The most interesting was that the weekends are free and in 2°REG, we are the only legionnaires who are allowed to go out in civil cloths.

Note: This rule completely changed after the terrorist attacks in 2015. Now it’s forbidden to put on military uniform outside the barracks after working hours.

As we arrived to Apt, we brought our packages up in our room and had a diner. The only thing we have left was iron our uniform for the next day and sleep…