From Cleebourg to Kuwait: Lessons in Responsibility

Today, The Mayor told me we were going to speak about values. He said this was a philosophical subject, and maybe he was right. Values are not always easy to explain. Sometimes they are easier to see in small stories, in mistakes, in work, in discipline, and in how people behave when life becomes difficult.

When I think about values, I think every family has values. But the values of one family are not exactly the same as the values of the next family. In general, the big values are the same, but in each family, there is a little difference. That is normal.

One story from my childhood stayed with me. I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, and one day I did not want to go to school. I was not in the mood. So I falsified the signature of my father or my mother. I thought I could escape school, go to the bar, play football with other friends, and everything would be fine.

But I got caught.

My father was not happy. The lesson was simple: when you make a mistake, you must pay for it. That stayed with me. At the time, I was young, and yes, maybe many children do something like that. The Mayor said he also did it and got caught. But today, if a young boy comes to me and says he forged the signature of his parents, I would say, “It is not good. It is your responsibility.”

That is the lesson. You can make a mistake, but then you must take responsibility. After that first time, I never did it again.

I also learned something else from that mistake: if you do something, do it correctly or do not do it at all. Of course, this is not advice to do bad things. It is more the lesson of a young boy who tried something stupid and learned that life catches you.

When I was young, life in Alsace was different. We lived well, but we also learned that you must work. No work, no money. That was very clear. I began working during the summer holidays. I was fifteen. In July 1982, I worked one month in a metal factory. In 1983, I worked two months. Then in 1984, I began to work more seriously.

I did not receive much pocket money. A little, yes, but not much. My grandparents helped more. My grandmother was more generous. My grandfather was fifty-fifty. My father was simple. With my first pay, I bought a mini stereo. In 1983, I bought a gun with my identity card. That was another time.

I also had trouble when I was young. I had some fights, but I never hurt innocent people. I never went to fight somebody for nothing. Sometimes there was a problem, and I went to talk. If we could solve the problem, then okay, we solved it, and everybody went home. But I had a strong character.

My mother said I had the same character as my grandmother. This was my grandmother on my father’s side. She was very good with me. For me, she was the best grandmother in the world. But in the village, she had a reputation. She was strong, stubborn, and not always easy. I think I have something from her. When I am sure I am right, when I believe something is correct or not correct, I do not move easily. But if people show me the opposite and explain it, then I can accept it.

My family history also has darkness. My grandmother from my father’s side was born in 1931. She went hunting. Maybe she preferred a gun to cooking. My grandmother from my mother’s side was different, with white-grey hair. During the war and the Nazi occupation, there were stories I discovered only many years later. People in the family helped prisoners escape. My grandmother helped bring escaped prisoners, maybe with light, maybe with guidance, and then they went further to escape. Some people from the family were sent to concentration camps. Some came back with health problems. Some stories are not clear anymore. It is too late to know everything. Maybe the archives in Strasbourg know more, but some history is buried.

When I left Cleebourg and went into the military, I was not really prepared. I grew up in the village. I had fun. I knew people. I knew life there. But the military was a completely different world. In 1984 and 1985, when I went to Pau, the beginning was very difficult. I had no mental training before. Nothing from school or family really prepared me for that discipline.

But many young men from Cleebourg went to the army. Some went 400 kilometres away. I went 1,200 kilometres away. I think I wanted to break from Cleebourg and start something new. At first, I thought it was only for one year. Maybe after one year I would come back and go to the bar again and say, “Okay, that was fine.” But the military became more than that.

The first two months were hard. I was not exactly scared, but I had respect. I saw how things worked, and I learned. The discipline was strong, but after two months it became okay. It became good. On 26 September 1985, I received my paratrooper badge. That was my goal. All the guys received it. We were proud. We were a unit. We were a team. We had the same badge, and that meant something.

In the military, I also saw leaders who showed values by action, not only by words. One of my best leaders was my lieutenant. His nickname was R2D2, like Star Wars. He was a small man, but he was hard and correct. He did not hesitate. He said, “You do this, this, this, and this.” Left limit, right limit, forward, never behind.

He was military, but he was human. That is important. When somebody made a mistake in Kuwait, R2D2 took him into a house. Five minutes later they came out. The guy had a red face, maybe more than that. But after that, the problem was finished. He made a mistake. He paid. Then he started again.

I think that was better than writing everything on paper. If it is written in your military file, it follows you for ten years and maybe hurts your promotion. But if the punishment is immediate and physical, then after two weeks it is gone. The lesson stays, but the file is clean. That was the army at that time.

Discipline begins with every man for himself, and then for the next man. If one guy makes a mistake, all the guys have a problem. It is like the Three Musketeers: all for one and one for all. But when the same guy makes mistakes every day, then the group must react. Sometimes the answer is simple: stop, or go to another regiment.

It was the same with hygiene. In one room, there was a guy who was allergic to water. Of course, not really allergic, but he did not like to shower. The other guys had enough. One day they took him into the hallway with cleaning products, sponges, scrapers, and steel wool. After that, he was red like a shrimp. But from that day, he was the first man in the shower. That was also a lesson in discipline.

Today, as a civilian, maybe this is difficult to imagine. But in the military, discipline was not theory. It was action. You saw it, you felt it, and you understood.

Another value I learned in the military was respect, even for the enemy. The Mayor asked me if a soldier can respect the enemy when the order is to destroy the other side. I think yes. A soldier is a tool for orders, but he is also a human being. I think you must respect the enemy.

There are stories from the First World War, when German and British soldiers played football at Christmas in no man’s land. On the ground, at the front, respect can exist. But sometimes headquarters, far away, do not want that. The soldiers may see the humanity of each other, but the officers far away see only strategy.

In the Gulf War, I think the situation was different. Religion and oppression changed things. Many Iraqi soldiers surrendered because Saddam was oppressive. Some soldiers were trapped. If they went forward, they could die. If they went backward, there were mines or soldiers behind them. So they had no real way out. In such a situation, respect is complicated, because fear, religion, politics, and survival are all mixed together.

The Mayor also asked me about Russia and Ukraine. I think the problem began long before today. After 1989, after the break of the Soviet Union, there was a new era. Yeltsin opened Russia more to Europe. But then Europe and NATO moved country after country closer, Poland and others, and Russia said stop. I think the beginning of the problem was there. Of course, what happens today is not only that, but the roots are older.

We also spoke about borders and corruption. The Mayor told me a story from Poland, when he accidentally drove the wrong way near a railway station and two policemen stopped him. They showed him a booklet and said he had broken many traffic laws. He paid the fine, maybe more like a bribe, and said he did not need a receipt. He said he was wet afterwards because he did not know what would happen.

That made me remember Poland too. When my brother-in-law went from Poland to France, there were many bottles of vodka in the back of the taxi. At the border, there were many cars. But you could pass with a passport and fifty Deutsche Marks. Then it was, “Okay, thank you very much. Bye-bye.”

Life is sometimes like that. You have to make choices, and not all choices are clean. The Mayor asked me if there was a moment when I had to do the right thing even when it was not easy. For me, it depends if I am alone or not. When I am alone, it is one thing. But when other people are with me, I have responsibility for them too. Then I think fast. Maybe the first solution is good, maybe bad, but I must find a solution because I am not responsible only for myself.

I feel this responsibility today in my work as a truck driver in Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe is a university city, and there are many cyclists, scooters, pedestrians, and young people everywhere. For me, cyclists are my nightmare. I hate cyclists. Of course, not all cyclists, but many do not respect the rules. They come from the wrong side, without lights, in dark clothes, and sometimes I see them only at the last moment. I brake, and then the cyclist gives me a bad gesture, as if I were the problem.

When there is an accident, the cyclist is always seen as the victim, and the car or lorry driver is the bad man. But I think in many cases, maybe seventy or eighty percent, the reality is the reverse. The law is not hard enough. I drive in the university area with cyclists, scooters, and pedestrians all around me. Sometimes, when I pull a container, people go between the lorry and the container. That is crazy. A truck driver must have eyes everywhere, like a Google camera.

When I look back at my life, I see that values are not always beautiful words. Values are what you do when something happens. You make a mistake, you pay. You work if you want money. You respect your leader if he is hard but correct. You respect the enemy if he is only a man doing his job. You take responsibility when other people depend on you. You learn discipline, sometimes the hard way. You try not to repeat the same mistake.

And when younger people look at me, maybe they should see my grandmother a little. Strong, stubborn, not perfect, but with principles. I can also say, “Do as I say, but not always as I do.” In French, we have something like that too. Maybe I show sometimes the bad example, but even a bad example can teach something.

The important thing is to learn, to take responsibility, and, if possible, not get caught twice for the same mistake.