# Foreign Legion Chaplain Father Pommerol



## tomahawk6 (5 Jul 2010)

Foreign Legion Chaplain Pommerol is with 2REP. During his 10 years of service with the Legion he has served 8 years deployed. Watching the video I can see why the Legionaires adore their Padre. If you click on the second link you can read the original article in French or read my poor translation. ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiJX76YPsb8&feature

http://www.lefigaro.fr/interna...-appellent-padre.php



> He is chaplain, he runs and jumps in parachute with the green berets of the 2nd REFERENCE MARK. What quickly made of him a figure as popular as respected in this regiment d' elite which still has just lost a man last week. Refusing the half-measures and the compromises, the father of Pommerol has all the priest of combat. In d' other times, the father Benoît Julien de Pommerol would have made a perfect martyr, in the kind of Thomas Beckett or to sir Thomas More, admirable as much qu' unbearable d' intransigence, running up unceasingly against a too prompt world with compromisings. It could also have been a monk soldier, Templier dedicated to the defense of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, or have endorsed l' armour d' a prelate fighter of the Middle Ages, sure of its faith and its sword. Or even to become an ascetic, emulates of the Father of Foucauld, éperdu of prayer at the bottom d' a desert. Born at the XXe century, the father of Pommerol became military chaplain. This young priest enthusiast d' absolute is the “Padre”, as one calls the chaplains in l' familiarly; army, of the 2nd foreign regiment parachutists, on mission since the beginning of l' year in Afghanistan. Large and thin, a long face of saint of Greco, Padre says the mass every morning, its paddle threaded over its camouflage dress and its boots of jump. Its small vault is arranged in basement in an old Soviet bunker. It is at the top of the French base of Tora, in the district of Sarobi, with l' is of Kabul, perched on a rocky outcrop lost in the middle of the Afghan mountains.
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> Its first colonel said to him: “Go with the paras, and jump!” Padre took this advice, it has aujourd' today more than 1.000 jumps to its credit. (Sebastien Dufour) He is chaplain, he runs and jumps in parachute with the green berets of the 2nd REFERENCE MARK. What quickly made of him a figure as popular as respected in this regiment d' elite which still has just lost a man last week. Refusing the half-measures and the compromises, the father of Pommerol has all the priest of combat. In d' other times, the father Benoît Julien de Pommerol would have made a perfect martyr, in the kind of Thomas Beckett or to sir Thomas More, admirable as much qu' unbearable d' intransigence, running up unceasingly against a too prompt world with compromisings. It could also have been a monk soldier, Templier dedicated to the defense of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, or have endorsed l' armour d' a prelate fighter of the Middle Ages, sure of its faith and its sword. Or even to become an ascetic, emulates of the Father of Foucauld, éperdu of prayer at the bottom d' a desert. Born at the XXe century, the father of Pommerol became military chaplain. This young priest enthusiast d' absolute is the “Padre”, as one calls the chaplains in l' familiarly; army, of the 2nd foreign regiment parachutists, on mission since the beginning of l' year in Afghanistan. Large and thin, a long face of saint of Greco, Padre says the mass every morning, its paddle threaded over its camouflage dress and its boots of jump. Its small vault is arranged in basement in an old Soviet bunker. It is at the top of the French base of Tora, in the district of Sarobi, with l' is of Kabul, perched on a rocky outcrop lost in the middle of the Afghan mountains. The father of Pommerol made build a small bell-tower, repaint the ceiling in blue, and dedicated l' building with Our-Lady-of-Victories. Sisters of l' Parisian church of the same name offered to him a statue of Michel saint, owner of the parachutists, qu' it placed on l' furnace bridge. “C' is obviously my patron saint”, known as the father, who distributes around him small medals of l' archangel, that the legionaries hang to l' interior of their green beret His aspergillum was manufactured by l' one of the mechanics of the regiment. “One s' in when I will remember will be up there, hein, Padre? ”, the mechanic said to him by giving him the solid object made of welded pieces of metal. The father of Pommerol is a popular figure with the regiment. He runs the morning with the legionaries, embarks in the armoured tanks which leave in patrol, or goes in the isolated stations, in the valley of Tagab or d' Uzbine, with the deployed companies. In Tora, one l' stop in the dusty alleys of the camp, between the armoured tanks parked in front of the buildings of the companies, like that, sometimes without reason, just to discuss. “The legionaries belong to a generation which does not know or little the religion. But they do not reject it, explains Padre. They often dropped God, but not by refusal, more by d' lack; occasion. They n' will not see a priest, but if a priest comes to them, they n' will not hesitate “to hang up again the coaches”. C' is pastoral handshake, says it. One day, l' a d' them m' said: “Padre, I cannot come to the mass, I did not confess myself since Kosovo.” This n' is not an unworthy attitude. C' is rather a mark of respect…, tells the father of Pommerol. I speak to them with simplicity. What does not want to say simply, he adds. My parish, c' is the regiment. I live in the middle of my parishioners. But ministerial priesthood is not enough to be made respect auprès d' they, specifies Padre. The legionaries are people who very left to be used for the Legion. They look at those which n' did not make the same choice with reserve. Their respect is deserved. It is necessary to go with them, to go on the ground with them, to jump with them.”
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