Famous memoirs of a British youngster who joined the French Foreign Legion and gutsed it out for five years. He left, went to work for Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong (of James Clavell fame), and became a multi-millionaire.
It's a remarkable historical document as Murray joined in the early 1960s and was in Algeria during the final days of the Algerian War as well as the attempted putsch. The first part of the diary is the best - the harrowing induction, the tough training, fighting Arabs (an ambush, cutting off someone's head - it's very exciting), the tension of the OAS. There's even a romance with a hot local girl.
It's less interesting once Algeria gets its independence and there's less fighting and more shooting competitions. Murray makes friends and the stories get even semi comic at times. It's sometimes hard to tell the other legionnaires apart. But that first half especially is awesome.
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