Disclaimer: I do not own Gate: Jieitai Kano Chi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri while Shingeki no Kyojin is the property of Hajime Isayama, I only own the OCs I create. Please enjoy reading this story.

And Thank you

"Hi!"=Yelling/Title

"Hi"= Speaking

'Hi'=Thinking

"Hi" = Flashback

'Hi'= Flashback thinking

Hi=Intro

"Hi!"= Flashback Yelling

Hey guys,

Sorry about the long wait, I've just started classes at the University of Oregon and as such my schedule gotten pretty hectic. I would like to thank all of you guys who elected to stay with me this long and hope that my apology properly shows my feelings on the matter. With that said I hope that all of you enjoy the newest chapter of And thus the French Foreign Legion Fought Here.

Sincerely,

Jackie Robinson

Chapter 8

November 13th, AOT Universe, Trost District, Early Afternoon

The hot early afternoon sun mercilessly beat down upon Lieutenant David Hoffman as he stood watch over his and the other unit sent to guard the small group of UN food distributers who'd elected to set up shop in one of the various squares throughout the district. Hoffman had been a member of the Canadian military for a grand total of 5 years, not including the time spent at the military academy, and had been able to be involved in various relief operations as part of his time in the Middle East, but in the entirety of his five years he'd never seen anything like this. In front of him was a line of people whose level of visible hunger could easily rival, if not surpass, the level seen in the various photos western journalists had taken of civilians in Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq. A fact which made him all the more aware of the current situation.

While Hoffman was well aware that his group was only one stationed in a long chain of food distribution points throughout the entirety of Wall Rose, ever since learned that his group was taking its turn to be the "Tail end Charlie" of sorts earlier this morning made him a good deal more cautious than usual. Primarily because of the fact that it meant it would take his group the longest to return to base meaning that they'd have a long wait if they had to call for help. But that wasn't the only reason he was on high alert today.

This was only the second day since the Trost District had been declared safe for UN food distributors and their escorts to enter into the district, with the first district having been cleared a total of ten days ago. To say that the first efforts made by the distributors and their escorts to provide food for the local inhabitants were poorly organized would be a massive exaggeration, in fact considering the information they'd been given they'd prepared rather well.

The only problem is that that information they'd been given was so inaccurate that upon reviewing it after the mission some members of the higher ups had begun to legitimately question whether or not it had somehow been sabotaged by an agent from some unidentified hostile group. In the end said higher ups had instead begun using tactical photographs and actual troop reconnaissance data to avoid sending them into another near war zone like area where citizens swamped the distribution tucks before they could be unloaded and forcing the security groups to fire their weapons in the air to scare them off.

"Lieutenant" a voice said, causing Hoffman to proceed to look to right and see Private Alexander Simpson standing next to him with his assault rifle in his left hand while saluting with his right. Simpson was from the other unit that Hoffman's had been assigned to provide joint security for a UN team that contained medical volunteers from across the United Kingdom and Canada and had been informally assigned as the go between for Hoffman and the British Sergeant who worked to organize the other unit.

"At ease private, what is it?" Hoffman asked, causing Simpson to lower his right hand before taking a much more relaxed stance before continuing on with his message.

"The Sergeant says that the distributors are reaching the tail end of their food supply and that we should start preparing for our departure" Simpson responded, causing Hoffman to subconsciously bite the now thoroughly raw interior of his right cheek.

"Alright Private, tell him that I understand and will begin organizing the removal effort" Hoffman replied earning him a salute from Private Simpson before watching him turn around and run off to deliver his response back to the Sergeant. After pausing briefly to take a swig from his water canteen Hoffman proceeded to move his vehicle to see if he would be able to communicate with other commanders at the site to make sure that the other officers below him knew what the plan for leaving was going forwards so that the lowest number of UN food distributors and soldiers were injured. But really if there was one thing that he had learned from his time here it was that the real victims of this whole thing were the various civilians who had the misfortune to be born into this specific society.

November 13th, AOT Universe, Trost District, Early Afternoon

To say that Cesar Khansari was having a bad day would be a fair, although painfully dull, statement which might cause the one saying it to receive an irritated look from the man who was the subject of the statement. Of course this look of irritation would not be entirely your fault but more so the culmination of several recent announcements, statements, and orders that Cesar had recently had delivered to him from his higher ranking officers; but still as unfair as it was you'd probably find yourself being the subject to the venting of all of his frustrations. But then again that's life.

In the case of Cesar, his life had almost instantly been made a good deal more difficult when he began learning of the fact that due to a serge in interest from many American based news outlets reporters from news stations within that country would be arriving shortly to begin reporting on the events that transpired there and the daily lives of those involved. However, there was one problem with this idea; that being that nothing really news worthy had occurred since training had begun meaning that reporters aimed at gaining "real life" stories would possibly be pushed into taking a more sensational angle. An angle which seldom ever resulted in anything good happening for those who were unfortunate enough to be the subject of that style of journalism.

As much as Cesar desired to not have this be in his peripheral mindset right now, the fact that he'd been formally told about it meant two things. First that it was going to happen no two ways about it and second that he was expected to do everything in his power to make it run as smoothly & as successfully as possible regardless of how he personally felt about it. Fortunately, Cesar was not forced to continue battling with these thoughts in his head as he was pulled out from them only a few seconds after he began to comprehend the immense head ache that awaited him and his fellow instructors in the very near future.

"Sir" a rather small and rather meek sounding voice called causing Cesar to turn his head in the direction the sound came from allowing him to come face to face with one Cadet Mina Carolina. Cadet Carolina, or "Mina" as she was called by some of the more informal soldiers that she worked with, had proven to be an ideal choice for the unit intermediary when it came to the dissemination of orders and collecting of training exercise results due to the fact that she was not too opinionated and seemed to be naturally submissive to her superiors. And while she proved to be awful and causing any of these specific orders to actually be done, there were plenty of others in the unit who could function as enforcers to make up for all of her weaknesses in that area.

"What is it Cadet?" Cesar asked, attempting to make his irritated attitude translate into a bored tone to prevent the Cadet from believing she was to next on Cesar's every growing list of people who needed a good verbal kick in the pants. For all of her usefulness as a runner the Cadet had one great flaw and that was whenever she was spoken to with any form of gusto, be it rightly or wrongly, she had a minute tendency to emotionally play the role of a scared turtle and effectively shut down. It was a habit that Cesar would need Joseph to kindly coach out of her, before it got her killed.

"Lieutenant Taube gave me orders to tell you that he feels that the other cadets and I are sufficient enough for a review of the training exercise" she reported, causing Cesar to raise an subconsciously his left eyebrow. If there was one thing that Cesar had learned since he and his second in command had begun training these new cadets was that while Joseph was an efficient coach when it came to instruction he help a specific weakness when it came to forcing them to repeat the drills until they were ground into their subconscious. This was partially understandable, since both of he and Cesar had been forced to undergo the exact same training in order from them to make it into the air force they both knew how unpleasant each drill was; however, this marked a difference between him and Joseph.

He could isolate his personal feelings on the drills, and personal experiences, he knew that the reason they were in use was because of how effective they were when it came to preparing a cadet for the toughest part of training. The flying. But this was neither the time nor the place to publicly make a scene about this problem, he would have to talk to Joseph about that later if he desired to politely question his friend's judgement without humiliating him in front of the cadets they were supposed to lead.

"Alright, tell the others to be at ease and in fifteen minutes we'll begin the next drill" Cesar replied causing Cadet Carolina to give a salute before running off to pass the news down the unit's grapevine of information. Watching as the small group of cadets seemed to either collapse out of what seemed to be exhaustion or taking some position trying to allow for the maximum amount of oxygen into their lungs Cesar began to make his way towards his friend to begin the little chat he knew was inevitable. Cesar arrived just in time to see Joseph lighting a cigarette, no doubt trying to relax himself during what little time he had, and preparing to put it his lips.

"I thought you said you were never going to touch one of those this?" Cesar asked, causing Joseph to suddenly drop the cigarette out of surprise before turning around to face him.

"Oh it's just you sir, for a second their I thought you sounded like my mother" Joseph answered as he proceeded to step on the cigarette in question before grinding it into the dust.

"Well for God's sake one of has to" Cesar replied before returning to the matter at hand "anyway like I said, I thought you vowed to never touch a cig". Reaching into his pocket Joseph proceeded to pull out a pack of cigarettes and take out another one before lighting it and returning to the previous act he'd been doing.

"I did" Joseph began before pausing briefly and then adding "but, things just happened". If there had been one thing that Cesar had learned from the older members of the air force during his brief time in the service it was that when a person mentions having "things" happen to them it was best to give them the benefit of the doubt unless you knew it was hurting someone.

"Well it'd be best if you didn't do it around the cadets or too many cadets, as you know smoking is contagious" Cesar added causing Joseph to pull the cigarette from his mouth.

"Come one you must've come here to do something other than chastise me over my smoking" Joseph responded.

"You're right" Cesar responded "my main focus was going to be on how convinced you are that these cadets are ready to move onto their next drill". Pausing briefly Joseph proceeded to take one last drag on his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and once again grinding it into the dust, this time without any sort of up beat comment.

"What's that supposed to mean sir?" he asked in a tone, that while not disrespectful, was still filled with a good deal of skepticism.

"I mean that on no less than three occasions you deemed the cadets ready to move onto the next drill after a good break, but when I reviewed them after said break they failed to meet the standards you said that they could fulfill" Cesar answered, trying his best to keep his voice down sot hat they couldn't be overheard.

"With due respect sir, could it not possibly be that by the time you review them they're so weary from reach or even surpassing the standard that they cannot replicate it" Joseph responded, causing Cesar to blink unfazed in response.

"You go too easy on them" Cesar stated.

"Only because you're too rough with them" Joseph countered, causing Cesar to cross his arms in response.

"How so?" Cesar asked, still hoping that this could serve as what some people elected to deem a "teachable moment" for the too of them. Or at least for Joseph.

"You drill them until they drop from exhaustion" Joseph began causing Cesar to slowly begin to raise his finger in response only to be shut down half way through doing so.

"An act which leaves them vulnerable to injuries which will slow down our progress, and causes you to be hated by them".

"Better to be hated and have them still alive, then to be loved and have to watch them die" Cesar shot back. For some reason he felt the need to look over his shoulder and as he did so, he saw that some of the cadets were looking at him and Joseph. A sign that he was beginning to lose his composure.

"How about this" Joseph suggested, causing Cesar to look his way.

"We agree to disagree; you can drill them as you see fit when your in charge, and I'll drill them as I see fit when I'm in charge" Hearing this Cesar could only begin to rub his temple in immense frustration. As innocent as it sounded this was by no means a fair deal since Joseph and the rest of the staff did the majority of day to day instruction whole Cesar only made brief cameos during inspections. But there was no other viable option available, so it would have to do.

"You're lucky you're not under a different officer, or else you'd be replaced" Cesar muttered under his breath, reminding Joseph of the opinions that had surrounded him upon graduating from the academy.

"Well someone has to remind you to keep in touch with your humanity" Joseph, cheerily replied.

"And someone needs to remind you to be weary of yours" Cesar countered, finally removing his hands from his temple,

"Is that all?" Joseph asked checking his watch, indicating that the time set aside for their little chat was running out.

"No, actually" Cesar responded before pulling out the piece of paper on which the dispatch he'd received was printed.

"I got an order from headquarters" he continued, unfolding it and handing it to Joseph.

"Some American journalists will be paying us a visit in a few days, which means that this little propaganda piece of a legion will no doubt be seeing combat before the end of our one year time table"

"But how? There's still so much we need to do" Joseph asked, his eyes rapidly reading the letter.

"I know, and unless we want them to play some narrative about our ineptness we'll need to begin the rest of recruiting" Cesar replied.

"You mean the mechanics, engineers, medics, new officers, and translators?" Joseph asked, his eyes rising from the letter as he handed it back to Cesar.

"Yes, all of it" Cesar replied, taking the letter and beginning to refold it.

"But how?" Joseph asked his superior as he calmly placed the dispatch back in his coat pocket.

"Search the rest of the legion for anyone with skills or interests surrounding the areas of mechanics, medicine, or language and report them to the head of the training program; hopefully we can at least begin the process of training them before the journalists get here" Cesar answered before turning around and adding.

"By the way Joseph, not a word of this to the cadets, if they ask to many questions they may begin to get increasingly unpleasant answers" with that he made his was towards his previous sport of observation. Hoping to form a better strategy for what to do in the days to come.

French Ministry of Defense, Paris, France November 13th 7:04 pm

The bright lights in the main office of the chief military officer for the French Ministry of Defense shone down upon one General Francois Lecointre as he looked over a recently received request for what must have been no less than the 100th time. The request had arrived earlier in the day and was about American journalists desiring to first known if the conflict zone was safe for people of their profession to enter and second whether or not they would be allowed to do so and, truth be told, the general had at first desired to lie to them and answer no to both questions.

Only there had been one problem with that strategy, he was not dealing with French citizens who trusted the decisions of their government due to a long history of policy makers being in the loop with their constituents but Americans whose history and political stances were completely different. Essentially while answering no would be seen as justified by the majority of French journalist to American journalists it was the sign of a guilty conscience built upon the hiding of a venomous and possibly damaging secret.

As such Lecointre had instead elected to hold off on a response until he could first alert the men on the group to the situation, giving them a little bit of a head's up so that that they could better warn their troops of the incoming fire storm. But there was also another reason. Like the majority of Frenchmen involved in global politics Lecointre knew one seemingly undeniable truth; that American journalists often lead to American attention, which in turn often lead to American intervention. It was one of the many beauties, and curses, of a democratic system; that the citizens could have a massive sway in the decisions of their policy makers at any given moment. But for France, a sudden rise in American interest, coupled with eventual intervention, in the conflict might put at risk all of the decisions made by the president in the recent years.

I was no secret that China and Russia were looking to re-emerge as the dominant superpowers in the world, a reality which left many Western European nations with only three options. Band together and resist as one, turn to the United States for help, or go off and take their chances on their own. For most the third was borderline suicide and the second seemed a good deal less likely with the American foreign relations now becoming more pseudo-isolationist, leaving the first choice as the only one and forcing another question to arise. Who would lead this new European Union? It was obvious that Merkel's time in the sun was running out due to her policies which left Germany as a sort of doormat for the West, meaning someone new needed to replace her.

Now, due to the recent diplomatic decisions made by the Macron administration, that person looked to be France and it's new diplomatic empire, an empire which could only exist if the U.S didn't intervene. However, if American journalists did go to the combat zone they may push a narrative of European negligence and convince American citizens to force the hand of U.S policy makers to intervene in the conflict.

So once again one was left with a choice. Deny the journalists and have them write editorials questioning the conflict's morality, causing the U.S to be force it's way in for "humanitarian" purposes? Or let them in and have them still write editorials that cause the American public to bully their policy makers into intervening in the conflict. In other words the situation was one of the better examples of being between a rock and a hard place.

In the end however, the real question was how much would the U.S want to get involved in this? A question which Lecointre had been toying with for the past few hours. And in the end he had reached his current conclusion, that such a question was entirely up to the Americans to make, a reality which made his next action all the more souring. Pulling out a pen Lecointre proceeded to sign the ready made statement that had been typed out by his secretary so many hours before and placed it in the outgoing section of his desk's mail box. Pressing the button for the night time secretary to come in Lecointre proceeded to dawn his jacket and hat before making his way out of the office.

"Good evening General Lecointre" one of the guard's said as Lecointre passed him, flashing a salute as he did so. Returning the salute in response Lecointre proceeded to get in his governmentally provided vehicle before driving off into the night. The uncertainty of the decision he just made still present on his mind.