Translation for T-21
T-21: You asked for a translation:
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Extracts from the Preface by Pierre Closterman.
Yesterday in Le Grand Cirque I tried to bring to life the combat of a Free French fighter pilot in the skies of Europe in 1942-1945.
Today, Appuie-feu sur l’oued Hallaïl is the story of a reserve officer pilot called up in Algeria 1956-1957. It is neither an autobiography nor imaginary fiction. In the guise of a historical story, it is rather a photographic report where words replace film.
One and a half million young French men served France in Algeria, and thirteen thousand of them died there during thankless, confused and desperate military operations. This book is not concerned with the political aspect of this war. Algerian politics has already impassioned the audiences of the Salle Wagram or the Forum d’Alger. Politics has done too much for the pitiless ambitions of exiles in the grand hotels of Cairo and Tunis. They are all despised by the men on both sides who suffered and died in the Algerian mountains.
But in the end, in spite of all arguments, whether a child is killed in a savage way or a civilised way, torn apart by a modern 20mm shell or ripped open by an old-fashioned dagger, it is still a dead child, it is still a crime.
We live in a sad century, where we kill too easily for too many good reasons.
Hope it helps.
Laurence
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