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.

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 '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 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 kepi 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."

In AD383, according to Bishop Eucherius of Lyon, flooding caused part of the bank of the River Rhone to collapse, revealing a massed grave of thousands of bodies. Eucherius identified these as a legion recruited for the Roman army from the Christians of the Theban district in Egypt, whom he claimed had been massacred nearly a century previously (near the modern village of St Maurice-en-Valais in southwestern Switzerland) for refusing to obey orders they considered immoral. This incident, asserted by Eucherius as matter of fact, is unrecorded elsewhere. Even the existence of this Theban legion is unclear.

“Examines all the possible fates of the famous IX legion . . . takes you on a fascinating detective journey through all the corners of the Roman Empire.” —History . . . The Interesting Bits! Legio IX Hispana had a long and active history, later founding York from where it guarded the northern frontiers in Britain. But the last evidence for its existence in Britain comes from AD 108. The mystery of their disappearance has inspired debate and imagination for decades. The most popular theory, immortalized in Rosemary Sutcliffe’s novel The Eagle of the Ninth, is that the legion was sent to fight the Caledonians in Scotland and wiped out there. But more recent archaeology (including evidence that London was burnt to the ground and dozens of decapitated heads) suggests a crisis, not on the border but in the heart of the province, previously thought to have been peaceful at this time. What if IX Hispana took part in a rebellion, leading to their punishment, disbandment and damnatio memoriae (official erasure from the records)? This proposed ‘Hadrianic War’ would then be the real context for Hadrian’s ‘visit’ in 122 with a whole legion, VI Victrix, which replaced the ‘vanished’ IX as the garrison at York. Other theories are that it was lost on the Rhine or Danube, or in the East. Simon Elliott considers the evidence for these four theories, and other possibilities. “A great and fascinating read . . . a page turner . . . The book offers some interesting and intriguing ideas around the fate of the Ninth.” —Irregular Magazine “An historical detective story pursued with academic rigour.” —Clash of Steel “A seminal and landmark study.” —Midwest Book Review

A vast tapestry of ancient times unfolds in this stirring tale of adventure and romance, whose setting reaches fom the hills of rome to the limits of the known world in the age of the Emperor Caligula.

The story of an ancient ambush that devastated Rome—and the modern-day hunt that finally revealed its location and its archaeological treasures. In 9 A.D., the seventeenth, eighteenth, & nineteenth Roman legions and their auxiliary troops under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus vanished in the boggy wilds of Germania. They died singly and by the hundreds over several days in a carefully planned ambush led by Arminius—a Roman-trained German warrior adopted and subsequently knighted by the Romans, but determined to stop Rome’s advance east beyond the Rhine River. By the time it was over, some 25,000 men, women, and children were dead and the course of European history had been forever altered. “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!” Emperor Augustus agonized aloud when he learned of the devastating loss. As decades passed, the location of the Varus defeat, one of the Western world’s most important battlefields, was lost to history. It remained so for two millennia. Fueled by an unshakable curiosity and burning interest in the story, a British Major named J. A. S. (Tony) Clunn delved into the nooks and crannies of times past. By sheer persistence and good luck, he turned the foundation of German national history on its ear. Convinced the running battle took place north of Osnabruck, Germany, Clunn set out to prove his point. His discovery of large numbers of Roman coins in the late 1980s, followed by a flood of thousands of other artifacts (including weapons and human remains), ended the mystery once and for all. Archaeologists and historians across the world agreed. Today, a state-of-the-art museum houses and interprets these priceless historical treasures on the very site Varus’s legions were lost. The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions is a masterful retelling of Clunn’s search to discover the Varus battlefield. His well-paced and vivid writing style makes for a compelling read as he alternates between his incredible modern quest and the ancient tale of the Roman occupation of Germany—based upon actual finds from the battlefield—that ultimately ended so tragically in the peat bogs of Kalkriese.

The reader, a clone at the end of his training, faces a variety of different adventures in a number of possible roles in the battle against the Separatists, in this book where the reader's choices determine what happens next