Since 1831, when it was founded, the French Foreign Legion has intrigued people from all over the world. Legionnaires’ heroism and resilience has become synonymous. Surely all of us can learn some powerful motivational lessons from these men. This article is mainly based on a recent conversation with one of them.
About a week after posting my ‘Legion Motivation’ article on my website, I was honored to receive an email from someone who had actually been a Legionnaire. I was also pleased to hear that you liked the article.
I was even more pleased to discover that it was none other than Sgt. Glenn Ferguson, who played a major role in the Channel 4 TV series about 12 volunteers who bravely or foolishly volunteered to undergo a month-long basic training in the North African desert in the style that the vast majority of Legionnaires endure .
We spoke later on the phone for about an hour about the show and Sgt. Glenn Ferguson’s own experiences in both the Legion and the US Army AIRBORNE Brigade Recon Team I learned a lot about what motivates the Legion and Legionnaires.
Sergeant Glenn Ferguson hails from Atlanta, Georgia in the US, but currently lives in France with his French wife and seven children. He is still only 37 years old.
I asked him what had motivated him to join the Legion at the age of 19. He wasn’t sure what to do at the time and he was young and inexperienced (I think he said ‘stupid’)! He had heard the great stories of the Legion and had decided to go after her.
When I asked him what motivated him after joining the Legion, he instantly replied: ‘Fear’. I imagine it was not fear of the enemy, but fear of the savage methods used by the Legion to discipline the often rebellious foreigners who joined their ranks.
The higher ranks of the legion were allowed to beat up the lower ranks who displayed a bad attitude. Most other armies do not allow this. Higher ranks may also use some painful drills and punishments to make recruits ready to accept discipline.
Interestingly, Sgt. Glenn Ferguson noted that the men who spent the most time in military prison for having a rebellious and arrogant attitude were British. However, he pointed out that not all Brits in the Legion were bad and that he served with some great individuals that he would go to war with at any moment.
One British member of the training staff was Corporal Richard Sutter, who had been with the Legion from 1990 to 1995.
At one point in the program, a volunteer challenged the Corporal to do the drill he demanded they do. Although I’m sure the corporal could have easily done the drill, he refused, pointing out that he had already paid his due.
Seasoned legionnaires have already been through hell once. No one has the right to ask them to go through that again. Sergeant Glenn Ferguson fully supported Corporal Richard Sutter in this view.
Another factor that motivated Sgt. Glenn Ferguson in the Legion was the fact that he hated to fail. All elite groups pride themselves on the standards they meet. They don’t want to be joined by people who only have half an attitude. A key saying the Sergeant emailed me was:
“If you didn’t get to be the best then stay with the other losers.”
Yesterday, I saw a British home cavalryman being scolded for low attendance. At first glance, his gleaming uniform looked stunning, but the officer was unwilling to accept what he considered a standard that let the British Army down.
The soldier tidied things up for the rest of the day, spending more hours polishing and cleaning.
Another of the Sergeant’s sayings fits this kind of attitude.
“You are only as strong as your weakest link, so never lower the level of the team.”
Sergeant Glenn Ferguson made sure the volunteers were motivated by sheer fear to do the best they could. He told them that if they didn’t get motivated, he would do the work himself.
However, his goal was still to produce self-discipline. One of his favorite sayings is:
“Discipline is doing the right thing not just when you’re being watched. It’s also doing the right thing when no one is watching.”
At one point (and this was not shown on the TV show) Sgt. Glenn Ferguson got the volunteers out of their beds, blindfolded them, took them out into the desert, and left them there to find their own way home!
This was not a punishment, but a powerful lesson in self-reliance and building self-confidence. The Sergeant had already taught the volunteers the skills necessary to navigate their way home.
He was also willing to help volunteers push their limits. Another of his sayings applies to this:
“If you’re never shown that you can push your limits, you’ll never know how far you can really go.”
The limits of the volunteers were undoubtedly pushed both physically and mentally. The hot desert air makes every long march much, much harder. Even when they were in the home fort, a volunteer took off part of his uniform to stay cooler. He was forced to wear his entire wardrobe for hours to teach him not to repeat the offense.
Two volunteers were buried up to their heads in sand to teach them discipline. The punishment seemed severe, but Sergeant Glenn Ferguson explained that it was even more severe than it seemed.
The volunteers were not standing in a neck-deep hole; they were made to sit cross-legged in a sitting position in a shallower hole. This would have been much more painful. They were temporarily paralyzed when they were pulled out of the hole. One remembers the pony in the Middle Ages!
In another incident, volunteers had to march into the desert without water. In today’s world, this is unthinkable. Everyone carries a water bottle, even in cold weather. But the Legion still has the attitudes of a different and much harsher world. To be fair, there were times when medical staff told volunteers to drink more water.
However, in this incident, Chef Sergeant Peter Hauser was asked by the television crew to give the volunteers water or they would die. Sergeant Chef gave a classic French Foreign Legion response: “There is no water; let them die. We march.”
The motivational methods of the French Foreign Legion may seem barbaric, but they produced results. They created an army of highly disciplined men and developed individuals who they knew could achieve and suffer much more than they thought possible. They had pushed their limits far beyond their expectations.
Sergeant Glenn Ferguson believes in pushing your limits so much that he even trains his Alsatian to push his limits. He points out that most dogs sit in their yards sniffing their butts and eating bones. His Alsatian of his, however, is trained to jump higher and higher until he can leap a ten foot wall! Talk about high standards!
Since the TV show was made, one of the volunteers has trained with the sergeant at his home in France and now has plans to apply to join the SAS.
Several of the volunteers have gained self-confidence and have had their lives changed. The TV show tended to focus on those who left the show rather than those who achieved great things.
Fear can be a great motivator. Pushing yourself far beyond your normal limits is a great motivator. The pride of belonging to an elite group of people who give 100% is also a great motivator.
Discipline motivates you to do the right thing, whether or not someone is watching you.
These are just a few of the motivational lessons the Legion can teach us.
My thanks to Sergeant Glenn Ferguson for taking an hour of his time to see first-hand the kind of motivation that makes the French Foreign Legion a legend around the world.
