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In 1937 aged just 19, Edmund Murray left his family and a
comfortable job in London, caught the boat train to France and
signed up for the minimum of five years' service with the French
Foreign Legion. Armed with little more than school-boy French and a
desire for a life of adventure, Murray travelled through France and
on to the Legion's headquarters in Algeria where he completed a
gruelling three-month basic training programme. He went on to serve
in Morocco and Indochina (now Vietnam) where towards the end of the
War, his regiment were forced to retreat from invading Japanese
forces into China where his service ended after eight years as a
Legionnaire. Throughout the Second World War, Murray's overwhelming
sense of duty compelled him to try to leave the Legion and join the
Allied forces, but he was thwarted at every attempt. He was an
Englishman, in a French organisation, by definition a home for 'the
men with no names', during a time of global conflict where battle
lines and countries' boundaries changed almost daily. He was an
anomaly, a diplomatic puzzle. But as such, his was an extraordinary
war-time experience. This book, which borrows heavily from Murray's
earlier book, Churchill's Bodyguard, includes rare personal
insights into Legion life from drills and manoeuvres, to feast-days
and festivals as well as accounts of friendships forged in
exceptional circumstances and which would last a lifetime. It also
documents a unique war-time experience of the man whose sense of
duty never faltered and led him, in later life, to become bodyguard
to Sir Winston Churchill. Edited by his son Bill Murray, this is
the story in his own words of Edmund Murray, Churchill's
Legionnaire, and his service in the French Foreign Legion from 1937
to 1945.
Bill Murray's entire career has been unconventional; he is
unconventional; therefore, wouldn't you expect his retirement to be
a little unconventional? Well, it will be. For the first half of
his career he held various positions as an aircraft operator, and
during the last half of his career he transitioned to acquisition
and program management. Colonel Murray flew two thousand hours in
the F-111D/F, F-16B/D, and C-130H. In Renegade Colonel, he recounts
his experiences over the thirty years that he served in the United
States Air Force. From his early years as an aircraft operator to
his later years in director positions, Bill has had the experience
of a lifetime. In the years to come, he wants his family to have a
glimpse into his life. How many people have lived in Canada,
England, and Spain, burned down a barn, burned down two houses,
gone to the Air Force Academy, burned up a room at the Air Force
Academy, played collegiate football, wrestling and lacrosse, flown
supersonic fighters, crashed a plane and survived, had cancer and
survived, had children and survived? You get the idea. Renegade
Colonel is a book of experiences, but also a book of philosophy and
instruction.
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