Interesting article.
Seems legit enough but obviously I can't vouch for its veracity
(lottsa BS floating around the net).
Sid
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French soldier's opinion of US Military in Afghanistan

Article in French here
http://omlt3-kdk3.over-blog.com/article-22935665.html

English translation from here
http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/category/military

“We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while -
they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry
battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy.
To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with
them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have
the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army
- one that the movies brought to the public as series showing
“ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events”.

Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and
what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day ? Few
of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses
on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become
the support company.

They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view
the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I
have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious
minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word?
Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even
admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties
understanding each other.

Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and
creatine - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their
muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to
them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that
they often mistake us for Afghans.

Here we discover America as it is often depicted : their values are
taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity lack of privacy
and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley.
Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that : the American
flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the
post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of
American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other
than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner.

Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who
provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in
such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades,
Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how
much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that
is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no
individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of
all his attention.

And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad
ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical
French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy
side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-
how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to
discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.)
the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in
the slightest.

On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall
they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night
vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely
danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and
days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a
handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a
soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are
covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks
with the Japy pump.

And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always
coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and
always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch
from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in
contact with the ennemy, the way they fight is simple and
disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in
stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any
pussyfooting short.

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp
chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent
spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle
just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will
rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the
mission is - from what we have been given to witness, the American
soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France
and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat
outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to
those who pay the daily tribute of America’s army’s deployment on
Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we
will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing
them say that we are all the same band of brothers”.