For the French Foreign Legion, the single most important anniversary to commemorate is the battle of Camerone, which took place in Mexico in 1863. Fewer than 60 Legionnaires stood against an entire army and, though they lost the battle, they managed to kill almost 500 Mexicans, prompting Col Millan of the Mexican forces to remark: "These are not men, but devils".
In the 1800s, you joined the Legion to die. And though certain things may have changed since then, a raw recruit who puts his name to the contract is still devoting his life to the Legion. They may not be devils, nor is it likely that many Legionnaires believe in God. They simply believe in the Legion, c'est tout.
"There are two types of people that join," explains Liam Cullinane, who spent seven years in the Legion ranks, "those who want to, and those who discover too late that they don't want to. And it's the latter who'll find it tough. And they'll be the ones most likely to desert." Fortunately, Liam was cut from the right cloth. When he approached the Legion in the town of Aubagne near Marseilles to sign away five years of his life, back in 1985, they took all he had and left him with little more than a toothbrush. When you join the Legion, you become a nobody - 75 per cent don't even retain their name.
To sort the men from the boys, a series of physical tests, including the completion of seven laps of a 400-metre track in less than 12 minutes, make up the preliminaries. From 500 enlistees, 470 are discarded. The remaining 30 face 15 to 17 weeks' basic training and further trials - an 8-kilometre run with a 12-kilo backpack to be completed in less than an hour; a 100-metre dash in 20 seconds carrying a sandbag weighing 40 kilo ; night runs of 25 kilometres carrying a 33-kilo backpack; and a final march of 150 kilometres in three days.
While there are no actual pass or fail requirements for these, it is in the best interests of the recruit to do as well he can. The reward for finishing in the top 10 being a choice of regiment.
This is no place for romantic souls or criminals, who, as myth would have it, "join the Legion to forget"; under intensive interviews, the former crack, the latter are soon exposed. As another Legionnaire once told me: "If you're running away from your missus, they'll let you in. If you've murdered someone, they'll know."
The Legion was formed by King Louis-Philippe in 1831, when countless foreign nationals, displaced by the turmoil caused by the Napoleonic Wars, flooded the cities of France. To clean up his streets, the king decided to create a military unit made up only of foreigners, which would be forbidden to serve in France, or - in theory at least - to allow French nationals within its ranks. The problem of where they would serve was soon solved when he looked in the direction of Algeria, saying: "So what if 100,000 rifles fire in Africa? Europe does not hear them." From that point on, the Legion existed to fight unpopular wars for France, while also acting as a sponge to soak up the spillage of social upheavals. Consequently, the Legion has seen periods of productive recruitment: Germans following the first and second World Wars; Spaniards after the Civil War; Poles, Hungarians, Russians and other casualties from the fall of Communism.
As recruits come from a wide range of social classes and nations, the potential always exists for conflict, and in the beginning, fist-fights are common. Differences are swiftly ironed out, however, by exhaustive training, and when everyone is forced to learn the same tongue - French.
Says Liam Cullinane: "I remember joining as a young 18-year-old back in 1985, and the awe these people inspired in me grew into a deep sense of respect as I matured. Extraordinarily fit, silent, strong, hospitable men. The Legion is like a microcosm. Square pegs in square holes.
"Some recruits, basic training complete, become chefs, musicians, even barbers. That's what they'll do, and everything runs like clockwork. You have this great sense of freedom created by the absence of social, cultural and religious restrictions which cause so much misery in civilian life. I never knew what religion any of the Legionnaires from Northern Ireland were, for example, and I never thought to ask.
"Time, also, seems to stand still. In the seven years, I don't think I aged physically. The normal characteristics of ageing just don't show until a man is well into his 40s. I suppose, it's because in the Legion, the past doesn't apply. No emphasis is ever laid upon a man's past and the future just doesn't have the same bearing.
"If a Legionnaire wants to, he can remain there for the rest of his life and be looked after until he dies." Like many people who have done something exceptional with their lives, Liam remains modest to the point of being reticent regarding skills he has acquired.
Finishing in the top 10 after basic training, Liam asked to be posted to the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2REP- DeuxiΦme Regiment Etranger de Parachutistes), based in Calvi, Corsica. The 2REP is a rapid reaction para-commando force, the elite of the elite.
In the mountaineering company where Liam was posted, you'd learn how to make snow shelters and survive arctic conditions, sabotage, sniping, amphibious techniques, unarmed combat, mountaineering, skiing and of course, parachuting. But despite being overwhelmed upon arrival at Camp Raffali in Corsica - the first year, as in any institution, means being the "new boy" - Liam was lucky. "If you were unlucky, you could find your self a victim of kitchen duties in the mess hall for weeks on end, or folding parachutes for months. I escaped all that, but nobody escaped the main duties which consisted of an exhausting and very mind-numbing week.
"Day one would entail slaving in the kitchen of the NCOs' mess (0730-2300) then returning to the billet to prepare for guard duty for the following morning. The next day, you'd rise at 5 a.m. for your 24 hours of guard duty. Guard duty is taken very seriously indeed, and the preparation of your kit is vital. Woe betide you if it's sloppy. Every item must be in place and there are 15 creases to be painstakingly ironed onto the shirt.
'I was late one morning and my uniform was a mess. When the sergeant reached me at the inspection, I was ordered off the square. When he finally got to me, he starting pummelling the hell out of me. I stared straight back at him and I think he admired me for that and he eased off. I wasn't disciplined, because I was a new boy.
"Things have changed in the Legion. Before, it was quite brutal, but everything has a point. Even the "march or die" had a point. In Algeria, back in the old days, if you fell out marching you'd be ripped to pieces by the Arabs. So instead, you'd be tied to a cart and dragged along until you got up. And you lived." Out-of-hand brutality is now a thing of the past. But as in any army, recruits are kept on their toes. The corporal's course, which Liam attended in 1988, lasted over four months and was designed to make you either "corporals or corpses". All movement, everywhere, is on the double. Any mistake is rewarded with hours on the parade ground with full back-pack, and the mistake of one means punishment for all.
In general, the day would begin at 5 a.m., with an 8-kilometre cross-country run. Barracks would be inspected three times a day, and if anything was out of place - and something would always be out of place - they would be inspected again at midnight and four in the morning. Afternoons would be spent exercising, ending in a forced march. Often, the men would return to find the barracks wrecked, with all their kit out on the parade ground or sprayed with a firehose. Overseas tours took Liam to Central Africa, Djibouti, Guyana and Senegal, countries liberated in the 1960s in the De Gaulle period, but all still maintaining a French military presence. Going overseas meant more money for a poorly-paid Legionnaire.
However, glamour wasn't included. The photos that Liam has of his time there merely reflect the dreadful heat, the dust, the boredom and, above all, weight loss. Even the rations in these outposts would be below par.
Liam's superior in Chad said "To hell with them!" one afternoon and sent troops to the local butcher.
The "butcher" simply selected a live beast, cut its throat over a trough and handed it over.
The brothels, however, were still maintained. "They closed down the regiment brothel in Corsica when I joined," says Liam, "but overseas there are plenty, and all the women are checked by Legion doctors. They're mostly local women. Brothels were always part of Legion life and the women travelled with the Legion. The men would go off and fight then come back to the brothels."
One thing the Legionnaire dreads above all else, however, is boredom. In former colonies, roads would be built that went nowhere, just to keep a man busy.
"Midday in Djibouti, the temperatures hit 50 degrees centigrade, and while we were resting, the mechanics would be repairing these things then desperately trying to find water from somewhere to clean themselves up before inspection. One day, one of our trucks broke down on desert patrol. The driver then discovered a punctured pipe. Nobody panicked because we knew he'd fix it somehow, despite not having the right tools. So he opened his cigarette pack, took out the tinfoil, and sealed up the split enough for us to get home."
Cullinane's career in the Legion was wide-ranging. From recruit, he was eventually accepted into the CRAP Commandos de Recherche et D'Action dans la Profondeur) taking up an extremely privileged position among the crΦme de la crΦme.
Although its numbers have dwindled to around 8,000, there is still a career to be had in the Legion, which is a well-equipped force at the forefront of France's military establishment and widely deployed throughout the globe.
When France - either on its own or as part of a UN venture - needs to send troops, the Legion will go first.
But at the end of seven years, two more than necessary, Liam decided to call it a day, feeling he would become "too institutionalised".
From there, he went trekking in Nepal to "find some inspiration". Finding none, he went diving in Egypt, deciding finally upon a professional diving course in Scotland. It was a decision that would cost him.
Contracting a rare strain of meningitis, he was hospitalised and told that as his motor functions were lost, he would never walk or even speak again.
There are rare testaments to the strength of the human spirit. That Liam swore to leave the wheelchair at the hospital gates and subsequently fulfilled that promise is one of them. Most of us would have simply faded.
He now speaks clearly, albeit slowly, and has made a rather bizarre but very effective bicycle for himself to manoeuvre round his home town of Galway.
Clearly, the lesson that Liam took with him most from the Legion was: above all else, when the will is there, there is always something, even when it appears there is nothing.