“Brenus will have to enlighten me about French army standards.”:
I can’t help to much on this. In 1979, the standards were quite different. The Army was different.
When I joined the French Army was still equipped with material like sub-machine guns MAT 49 and rifles MAS 49-56. The figures at the end are the years of production.
So, a sub-machine gun produced in 1949 and a rifle produced in 1949 then modified in 1956. Well, let say material used by my father in (almost) Vietnam and Algeria. He could have used them. Because in fact in Indochina he used US weapons (Thompson and USM1) and some Japanese machine-gun.
The Russian had at the time the AK47 and US the M16.

The mentality at the time was really anti socialo-communist with a quite understanding with Le Pen position.
However, it was as well a formidable tool of integration with the conscripts system.
Some learned the hard reality of driving a tank (and to do the maintenance) and to change the caterpillar under the rain and in the mud of Mailly when they were used to drive a Jaguar (the car, not the plane)…
Armenians from Marseilles mixed with the Turks from Lyon, Chti with the Black feet from Avignon, all these men lost in the Middle of Alsace when suddenly the ones from the Martinique were confronted with the Alsacians speaking their own language.
And of course villages’ names almost always finishing by “heim” or “berg”.

The French Army “legend” is actually based on Indochina and Algeria. Military vocabulary used a lot of Arab words, as chouf, mechta, djebbel, baraka… In Sarajevo, he hills around the towns were named like the one around Dien Bien Phu (Anne-Marie, Béatrice, Claudine, Eliane, Françoise, Gabrielle, Huguette (and the most known) Isabelle, and Julliete.
My promotion’s was named about a Indochina veteran who was Chasseur Alpin and volunteer to jump on Dien Bien Phu when the battle was lost.

The training was and is probably still hard. I started with a platoon of 36. We ended 15 graduated.
The French Army trained in Jungle warfare in Guyana and Desert warfare in Djibouti. And believe me, Commando Centre No1 in Collioure (sp?) and Mont Louis is nothing to do with tourism. I did HATE these tourists taking me in picture when I was suffering and sweating on the cables and various obstacles… 4 hours of sleep in 3 days, pain, hard work, explosives,
Commando techniques on how to strangle (or knife) a guard, to blow a train or a bridge, training pushing the limits so far that you become just a big huge pain with red eyes without mind but one will: to go to bed….

We were not so impressed by the US army at that time I have to say.
But we never question the courage of the US. Just their capacity to endure…
It is what this letter is saying. Hey look, they are like us. Proud of their flag, proud of what they are… Honneur et Patrie, Honour and Motherland, is what WE, French, have on our Regimental Flag.
This letter is in fact saying that finally the US Army is reaching our level.
You spoke about arrogance? There you are.

I was 63 kg when I joined, 70 after one year of training, and nothing was fat… But we French are short. I had to admitted it when working in Yugoslavia, when you can always see where I am on a picture within a group of Serbs, Croats or Bosnians, yeah, the shorter one, right there…

“The French thrive on communities, but lack any team spirit or community values”. No entirely true. Of course, in the Army you function as a team, but you will find the same kind of attitude in MSF, MDM or others charities. We do have steam spirit when there is a need or an incentive…

“there is always genuine respect for the Americans who died in WWII”: Yeap. And none of as will ever compare the US soldiers with Nazism.