Simon Nielsen om livet i Fremmedlegionen

Simon Nielsen’s path to the French Foreign Legion began in a prison cell. He was a Danish soldier who had been kicked out of the military for violence, then imprisoned for threats. His father’s bipolar disorder had sent his own life into a tailspin of heavy drinking and fighting. While serving time, a journalist brought him a book—Soldat i Fremmedlegionen by Tony Sloan—about a man who changed his life by joining the Legion. His mother wrote him a letter saying she would not be part of his life if he kept going the way he was. In that cell, Nielsen hit bottom and made a decision: when he got out, he would go to the Foreign Legion.

What the Foreign Legion actually is

The French Foreign Legion is a branch of the French Army, created in 1831 by King Louis Philippe. Its original purpose was twofold: get rid of the roving bands of troublemakers left over after the French Revolution, and build a hard-hitting force for France’s colonial wars in North Africa. “They took some having bands and playing soldiers, but then you also made us better people, because we got a purpose with life,” Nielsen says. After the 1960s and the end of the colonial era, the Legion was brought back to France. Today it has about 10,000 soldiers across nine regiments, almost all stationed in mainland France. The only overseas regiment is in French Guiana, which remains a French department and part of the