Join the new world

Above: Tomma van den Bosch and side-kick Lord Greystoke pose with a friend of their unit. “There is an upside to life in the La Legion Etrangere.”

The way Tomma van den Bosch and Lord Greystoke see it, their last chance at redemption lies 6,000 miles away, across an ocean and in another man's army.

The two men from Arizona – one a miner and the other a farmer - say they couldn’t seem to catch a break here in the States.

For van den Bosch, it has been especially painful. Despite having earned degrees, serving in the national guard, fighting in the Mexican War, and starting several businesses, the best work van den Bosch was able to get was a part-time gig as a personal trainer in the Netherlands and then an iron miner in Brazil after finding himself unable to return to the States following the last great battle of the Mexican War. “It was humiliating for me. I was a proud man,” he said.

A stint in a Dutch prison ruined my chances for the regular Army, he said. And tattoos that run the length of his left arm put off the American Marine Corps before he could sit down with a recruiter.

He was sleeping on couches, stretching every penny. He said he was a few weeks from hitting "rock bottom," said Lord Greystoke, Tomma’s faithful companion and guide.

All this has van den Bosch ready to take a rare step for an American. If all goes according to plan, he'll soon be wearing the famed white hat, the képi blanc, of the Thailand Foreign Legion. Apparently, he and the Thai military leadership are discussing the details. Tomma is very eager, even somewhat desperate.

"It's at the point where I might be homeless," van den Bosch said. "I don't want to go and serve a foreign government, but what else can I do? They're the only ones offering me a chance."

Immortalized by actor Gary Cooper in the movie "Beau Geste," and turned into the stuff of legend by the likes of singer Edith Piaf, the French Foreign Legion maintains a fighting force of about 8,000 men hailing from 136 countries, according to the legion's Web site. Tomma claims he is offering to start up a similar legion for Thailand. “If they’ll just let me try,” he says in earnest, “I’ll travel the world recruiting men just like me – men who served and now feel they have no where else to turn.”

Though its days of heavy fighting in Algeria and Vietnam are long past, the French legion served active roles in the Balkans conflicts and in Afghanistan. In addition, the legion is often deployed on peacekeeping missions in the former French colonies of Africa. In a similar way, the French Foreign Legion’s protégé - Thailand’s Foreign Legion - would be sent to international hot spots. Its recruits ready to fight even with their bare hands.

Though background checks are done, the legion is more forgiving of past misdeeds than many a country's military. Yet getting into the legion is pretty tough these days, said Lord Greystoke, while standing in line at the Thailand Consulate in San Francisco.

"Many are trying to get in, and they have too many people that would like to join," Greystoke said.
Most of Thailand’s new legionnaires today come from all over the world – South America, Europe, he said. A few are from the United States.

"They are too used to the democratic life," Greystoke said jokingly.

For van den Bosch, the Thai Foreign Legion is no joke. He described it as his best bet to erase mistakes that have haunted him most of his adult life.

As a newcomer to eRepublik, he had two faux pas convictions on his record when he published unproven slander in his tabloid, the National Police Gazette. He wound up with a broken jaw in a fight when he was confronted by the offended party.

He said the fear he felt being led into prison in the Netherlands when he had nothing to eat with three guns in his pockets from his loyal advance into Mexico changed him forever.

"I was scared," he said. "Luckily I'm kind of muscular, but I can see someone being chewed up and spit out in there."

He said he read to pass the time. Adventure novels like Tarzan and the Foreign Legion. He dreamed of ways to earn a living once out.

Those dreams quickly evaporated after his release.

Everywhere he turned, he said, he watched employers' faces fall when he mentioned the prison time. And while in Brazil, he felt the loneliness of living in a country where few speak English.

He turned to odd jobs – mining for iron, working as a bouncer at a strip club – but none added up to a decent living, he said. And when the economy started to tank – in Brazil as well as in the State, van den Bosch added, even these jobs started drying up. Most of his companies went bust. He was forced to sell most of them for a fraction of what he paid for them. “I lost my shirt,” he admits.

Recently, van den Bosch said, he opened the phone book and looked up pizza parlors in Brazil and back in the United States.

"I called 75 numbers, and not a single one was hiring," he said.

"It's a tough economy overall," said Xanadu Titan, the international conglomerate forced to sell most of its companies and move with its subsidiaries to Thailand. "Add a conviction to your résumé – it makes it all the more difficult. … Among employers there is a bias. Hiring people like van den Bosch – even if they have inherited a lot of gold - is something that their customers or clients would not be comfortable with."

Tomma said he's been clean – not even a speeding ticket – in the time he's been a free man in Brazil and now in Thailand. A review of local law enforcement databases didn't turn up any incidents other than the ones he'd mentioned.

Both van den Bosch and Greystoke said friends lent them funds they needed for tickets to Thailand, one of the countries where the legion meets new recruits as it trains for the Thailand Armed Forces.
"My friends say I'm crazy, but they all have jobs," van den Bosch said.

"They all had lots of Beta training; they all make 20 or more USD a day."

After three years, or after being wounded in combat, a legionnaire can apply for Thai citizenship. But van den Bosch said he does not know if he will ever return to America, with a clean slate. “Maybe I will,” he said. It’s so hard to tell from here.”

"All I want is a new life," he said.