I bet if Exercise Evaluation Team members gave points for creative ways of getting out of participating in exercises, everyone would always get an Outstanding.
So, Normandy was, in a word, amazing. The whole trip was an absolute blast, and while it was fun, it was a surreal experience to stand on those beaches and just try to imagine what those men had to go through 66 years ago. I’d say more, but I need to write the article about it. 
France was nothing like I expected. You hear so many negative things so often, and I’ve heard first-hand horror stories from people who have gone to Paris and had a miserable time, but Normandy and the local residents were incredible, and I can’t wait to go back and take Kaitie to see it. I’ve never seen so many people proudly waving American flags and shaking our hands outside our own borders.
Anyway, I’m late posting, so I’ll write more later.
-Farva
They still get to wear blues during ORE/ORI?
That’s because, while Parisians can be haughty to Americans, having forgotten their own history, the people of Normandy remember what happened 66 years ago. They care for us, because so many of ours, be they Brits, Canucks, Aussies, Kiwis, or Americans, gave up more than any other can so they could have what others take for granted. They live with the constant reminder never far from them of what freedom costs. Would that many others remembered so easily.
Don’t expect me to go home and change, it’s trouble enough getting my uniform to look right.
Paris != France. It’s just that that’s all most foreigners ever see. Imagine if every tourist in the US went to New York, then how a Brit would react to Dallas. That’s what happened for you.
This upcoming weekend: Le Mans. Even better, say “Le Mans” like you’re saying “Armageddon.”
Yes! Saturday is the start of 24 Heures du Mans, the greatest automobile endurance race in the world.
I’m suprised he said 9:30. I would’ve expected something around 7:30.
everyone knows ops doesn’t get in ’til 8:00
My point exactly. I have seen crew shows before 7:30 in the KC-135 and A-10 world though. The rest might not come in until later though.
I got to admit Farva, I’m jealous. I was just talking to a friend about how amazing it would be to see certain places in Europe and Normandy was on top of the list.
where will Barbie be at 0930? flying, or simulated casualty?
I’ve been to France several times and must say if you get out of Paris the people are great! Paris is incredibly shady and the people are very rude but once out of Paris (even as close as Versaille) the people become immediately better and even just trying to speak bad French will earn you major brownie points.
Which parts of France? I’m all eyes and ears.
Besides, if the French didn’t like Americans we wouldn’t have the Corvette Racing team out there.
@ all Americans.
95% of the French people DO remember what allied troops did for Freedom 66 years ago.
95% of French non-Parisians don’t like Parisians !
I live in the South of France, in Toulon. We used to have a lot of American ‘tourists’ of the 6th Fleet.
Americans are usually considered as friends. Parisians are usually considered as enemies.
More or less proving my point, French Fly Boy. Paris is NOT France, they just got stuck with it. And thanks for correcting me where I was wrong. My apologies for any offense taken or implied.
Apologizing is not necessary.
Even during the good old days of ‘French-bashing’ the few French people able to understand the jokes were also laughing. We are often said to be arrogant, that’s partialy true. But we also have a deep sense of humor. That’s why we do not worry about what the rest of the world thinks of us. The Americans and the French have a lot of things in common but i think one of our main differences is that you are concerned about what the world think of you, we don’t give a f**k about it.
You know what? Exactly the same thing happened to me, just the other way round: When I first visited the U.S. a few years ago, I was totally surprised by how friendly, polite, helpful and nice you people are, even to complete strangers! It was the complete opposite of what everybody was thinking over here in germany. Apparently, we are all given only half of the story most of the time.
Needless to say that this experience has dramatically improved my opinion on your country.
So what’s the bottom line? Don’t trust books, tv, newspapers,… trying to sell their opinion on a country.Go get there yourself if you can and form your own!
Just wait, Farva. World Cup starts this weekend. First game the U.S. plays is against England. If we can actually beat them (the U.S. team this year actually looks strong enough for me to back them. First time I’ll be doing that since I was 12 years old), you will see The United Kingdom fall into a collective state of mourning. Meanwhile, this entire continent is about to fall into a collective state of insanity for the next month. Watched the 2006 final match in a hotel bar in Brussels. I was sitting at the bar with a British businessman drinking Leffe Blondes. There was a group of Italians and a group of Frenchmen also in the bar. Me and the Brit were afraid we were gonna end up in the middle of a bar-brawl when Zidane decided to go apeshit insane. This year is also gonna be a blast.
You know soccer is a wild sport when countries go to war over the results! That never happens with baseball! (of course, the only other countries that play baseball, Canada and Japan, we’ve already FOUGHT wars with, so maybe we just do things backwards in our parts of the world…)
Here at Al Udeid they are actually showing the first round match between the US and England. How I’m not sure as we were originally told AFN couldn’t get the rights (Qatari cable maybe). We have a huge contingent of British military so watching the game and enjoying our 3 beers should make for an interesting night
Farv, I used to have a classmate from Normandy, she was about the sweetest girl I’d ever had the pleasure of speaking broken Spanish with (she spoke very good English, but we were in a Spanish class together). To this day, I’m still not sure how a girl from Normandy ended up in College Station studying Spanish, but she was a sweetheart.
As far as exercises go, we’ve had some fun uniform combos depending on when an exercise recall got kicked off. I have found myself standing in the UCC in PT gear, with one of my sergeants in blues, and another airman in ABUs, running a recall. Our squadron commander thought that was pretty funny.
I’ve been to Paris and other cities in France several times while we were stationed at Spangdahlem and Ramstein, and I have always found everyone, except for a very few, to be nice and welcoming. However, I have seen people being rude to my traveling companions, who actually deserved it from the way they were acting. One actually said that the French should learn English so she wouldn’t have to learn French. MWR trips can be very enlightening.
I went to Paris with family a few weeks ago and had a great time. Given what I’d heard, people were surprisingly friendly to us and aside from a bit of culture shock (breakfast was always the same no matter where we ate) everything was great on our trip.
It seems today is French-American Friendship day
So, have a look
http://www.usafe.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123207111
I’ve had no issues in France. Sure, some people can be rude in Paris, but I got the same reception in NYC as a southerner. I dated a girl from Nice for a while and went a few times…love the place.
Farva, any chance we could get a option to share on Facebook? Now that we have FB on the AF computers I thought it might help bringing in even more regulars.
I’m all for French jokes and any others including American but only if they are funny. In France Jerry Lewis films are popular. Thats funny no matter who you are! I spend a weekend in Paris in ’98, had a good time with decent people, even recieved some very nice directions from a cab driver on how to get to our hotel. We followed in on our bikes and he refused a tip! I spoke broken French and everyone laughed at me but gave me props for tying and then switched to their much better English. Its all how you act and realize that no matter what country or city you wil always run into a few d-bags.
VD
I’ve found if you’re one of the *unfortunately many it seems* Americans who think everyone should speak English for your convenience and/or promote the view of the stereotypical American then many places will have people treating you poorly.
Personally it’s been rare I’ve had any problem. I don’t speak any other language fluently but I’ve always at least tried to learns some basics to stutter and get by. Most seemed happy to speak English if they could if I tried theirs (probably to keep me from butchering it anymore).
I’ve heard the same thing about Paris: very rude people, extremely dirty, the whole city smells, etc. I was just there last month and have to say the people were very nice (with maybe one or two individuals as the exception), the city was clean enough (or at least no worse than any other major city, LA is much worse), and only once did I detect any unpleasant stinks (thankfully passing through in a cab). But I also attempted to speak French as able, met dress codes where required instead of showing up EVERYwhere in jeans and treated them as people themselves.
I’ve heard similar about Venice (dirty, stinks, etc) and that was a great place to visit as well. *shrug* I have more of a problem in California, Texas, Florida and Colorado with rude people who don’t speak English than I ever have overseas. :CD
From Barbie’s last line, after 0930 are we down from drinking Coffman’s coffee? STS