Legion of the Lost: The True Experience of an American in the French Foreign Legion

The son of underpaid Mexican immigrants, Jaime earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue. But at twenty-three, he was disillusioned with the corporate fast track. So he became an outcast American in a hard-bitten group of recruits-men on the run from their pasts, men without hope: He joined the French Foreign Legion. From the Legion's notoriously brutal training to Salazar's fierce competitiveness, ultimate disillusionment and dramatic desertion, Legion of the Lost is a compelling, firsthand account of today's French Foreign Legion that will dispel myths while adding to the legend of the finest trained army of warriors the world has ever known.

Legion of the Lost: The True Experience of An American in the French Foreign Legion

Biographies & Memoirs

Salazar, Jaime

Leaders & Notable People

Dutton Caliber

Historical

Revised edition, with a new foreword and afterword from the author. ‘From an air-conditioned Chicago office, Mr. Salazar took the express elevator straight to hell. Legion of the Lost is his story, the improbable, very funny tale of a sensitive, bookish child of Mexican immigrants who walked away from a promising career and, for romantic reasons, threw in his lot with a motley assortment of thugs, drunks, drug abusers and desperate refugees from the far corners of the earth. And those are the ones giving orders.’ New York Times ‘A story of horrifying institutionalised cruelty and incredible suffering, tempered with extraordinary camaraderie and mind-boggling fortitude. Legion of the Lost lays to rest romantic myths about the French Foreign Legion forever.’ Google Books ‘After about a year in corporate America, Jaime Salazar realized he wanted more in life. He wanted more than a big paycheck and a BMW. Salazar is a born adventurer and romantic and was not content with his job with Siemens in Chicago, where he was part of the technical sales teams. His ideals led him to the French Foreign Legion.’ The Purdue Exponent “Salazar presents a mix of honor, esprit de corps, and servitude that seems to part of another century. The mystique of the French Foreign Legion is ripped away. Salazar’s story is as interesting as it is unexpected.” Evil Cyclist blog ‘A colorful, detailed, and brisk account of the blood, beatings, binge drinking, racism, and occasional satisfaction and pride from his time with the Legion. Salazar’s prose marches along like a fit Legionnaire, largely un-ornamented yet getting the job done quickly and effectively, with all the dirt, swearing, and gunpowder one would expect from a military memoir. Legion of the Lost should prompt serious reflection about commitment, discipline, meaning, and purpose in life.’ Good Reads “I thought this book was fantastic. A true insight into a fascinating world that we know little about. The trials, tribulations and hardships of the legion,and the reasons why it calls so many.A compelling read.” Gillian Ashton - Librarian No army is more surrounded by mystery, romance, and admiration than the French Foreign Legion. King Louis Philippe II created the Foreign Legion in 1831 as a way to rid France of penniless immigrants and others considered a liability to the French establishment. The Foreign Legion still exists today as an elite army of modern mercenaries from around the world, in the service of la France. Considered a haven for the dregs of society, joining the Foreign Legion was rumoured to be simple, but it wasn’t. Getting out of the Foreign Legion, as Salazar soon realised, proved impossible. So what was an engineering professional doing in the “Legion of the Damned”? For those Dostoevsky calls the “insulted and the injured,” men of character who seek adventure in the most obscure places, the Legion offers refuge. After surrendering his passport, and with it, any human rights, the Legion gave Salazar a new name and life. Even after finishing four months of what the Legion calls instruction, Salazar realized that his existence wasn’t like that of Gary Cooper in Beau Geste. It was more a primitive life of beatings, marches, fanatical discipline, and sadistic NCOs. Idealists looking for a new beginning come to the Legion, but only the toughest, and cruelest are left to wear the Legion headdress, the képi blanc. Once enlisted, there are three ways to leave the Legion: finishing one’s five-year contract, disability, or leaving in a box. While serving a term in Legion prison, Salazar came up with a fourth solution — escape.

Thistle Publishing

As cities evolve architects are constantly searching for appropriate architectonic solutions, and in this book the authors present a systematic examination of innovative single-family houses and residential buildings in the context of present-day cities. The latest developments are reviewed in essays and thematic chapters discuss such topics as low-energy building, the use of prefabricated materials, or low-budget building. A range of international examples from architects such as Wiel Arets, Shigeru Ban, Ben van Berkel, Kees Christiaanse, Philippe Gazeau, Frank O. Gehry, Steven Holl, Hans Kollhoff, Morger &amp; Degelo, MVRDV, Jean Nouvel, Kas Oosterhuis, illustrate the subjects discussed. 
"Housing" and "Single-Family Housing" were previously published separately, each proving hugely popular. Now both volumes have been incorporated into a single, low-priced edition.

Housing/Single-Family Housing

Arts & Photography

Gausa, Manuel

Architecture

Birkhauser

VPRO is the most iconoclastic and freethinking private broadcasting company in the Netherlands. Its headquarters were once spread around ten villas in Hilversum. Now it has a new premises, designed by the fabled MVRDV architectural team. Although housed in a single huge building, VPRO remains a non-hierarchical organization, and is contained in an environment designed as a continuous interior that folds the urban space inside the building. This book tells the entirety of this radical building's design and function.

MVRDV at VPRO

EDITORIAL ACTAR

Onnasch Collection

Graham, Dan

Groys, Boris

Newman, Barnett

Rauschenberg, Robert

Kienholz, Edward

Motherwell, Robert

OLDENBURG, Claes

Spuybroek, Lars

TWOMBLY, Cy

Oosterhuis, Kas

Smithson, Robert

Flavin, Dan

HOFMANN, Hans

Weiner, Lawrence

HAACKE, Hans

Rhoades, Jason

Louis, Morris

Kipphoff, Petra

History & Criticism

The shift from modern to digital systems of design and production opens up a material work to a deeper relationship between author and perceiver. From the classical work to the modern object and from the modern industrial to 'computerised' procedures, the interplay between author and user has become closer, more direct and open. How does this increasing complicity affect architectural practice? How can architecture be conceived as a more fluid informational development? Publishing architectures is much more than displaying a recently finished product in which the architect is the unique author. To make architecture is a real undertaking of numerous authors based on the processing of information before, during and after the materialization of the building. The contemporary relationship between information and authorship in architectural practice, featuring works and texts by Manuel de Landa, Jorge Wagensberg, FOA Architects, Sadar & Vuga, njiric & njiric, Love, Lacaton & Vassal.

VERB PROCESSING FRENCH

Actar

The shift from modern to digital systems of design and production opens up a material work to a deeper relationship between author and perceiver. From the classical work to the modern object and from the modern industrial to 'computerised' procedures, the interplay between author and user has become closer, more direct and open. How does this increasing complicity affect architectural practice? How can architecture be conceived as a more fluid informational development? Publishing architectures is much more than displaying a recently finished product in which the architect is the unique author. To make architecture is a real undertaking of numerous authors based on the processing of information before, during and after the materialization of the building. The contemporary relationship between information and authorship in architectural practice, featuring works and texts by Manuel de Landa, Jorge Wagensberg, FOA Architects, Sadar &amp; Vuga, njiric &amp; njiric, Love, Lacaton &amp; Vassal.

VERB PROCESSING (Architecture Boogazine)

The second issue of Verb asks: What can we really build? Verb Matters explores the formal and material possibilities for construction in our present information era, with its extensive data processing, global networking, and increasingly blurred distinctions between natural matter and artificial technology. This critical itinerary begins with reflections on the results of sophisticated ideas applied to the shaping of buildings including Toyo Ito's ephemeral work, recent attention to inflatable architecture and building with air, and the low tech approach of practitioners like LOT/EK. Consideration of the growing potential of current technology is also examined in a piece equating recent sneaker design technology to that of car manufacturing, as well as the use of artificial intelligence in home control networks at MIT's "Media House" project. Colorful, tactile, dense, and packaged in its own very contemporary design, Verb Matters remains devoted to cutting-edge issues in architecture and design.

Verb Matters

Sakamoto, Tomoko

Prat, Ramon

Ferré, Albert

Tetas, Anna

An exciting overview of innovative spaces and techniques made in Catalonia. The publication presents a cross section of products , constructed buildings and produced environments. Each patent construction represents a solution to specific functional requests, social demands, environmental requirements, and budget limitations, and the desire to improve the construction process. Designed and produced within specific contexts, these innovations define new architectonic solutions, where the protagonists are not the buildings, but the ground-breaking patents and prototypes. Works by EMBT, Carme PinÃ³s, Enric Ruiz-Geli, Vicente Guallart, RCR, Arturo Frediani...

Patent Constructions: New Architecture Made in Catalonia

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