Would the United States benefit by creating a Veteran Legion similar to the French Foreign Legion in fighting proxy wars around the globe?

Good point.

MSG Dan Walther - We can agree to disagree on this one MSG.

MSG Dan Walther - God love ya MSG. Like minded people don't always agree, but we can be cool about it. That's how real "Merican's" do it!

Sir, are you implying we should have special units similar to Roman Auxiliaries? I don't see the point. If non-citizen soldiers don't get integrated into regular units, we will have trained a military force that doesn't necessarily value the country they fight for, or have any cohesion to other military within the country. This is essentially how the ostrogoths conquered the Western Roman Empire. They eventually heavily relied on these auxiliaries to fight their wars. Leading to a military that was majority non-citizen. They eventually used their training to sack Rome in AD 476.

MSG Dan Walther The good colonel said "it's an interesting concept for a couple of other reasons including paths to citizenship". That is exact same concept to how Auxiliaries worked within the Roman military. If you served as an auxiliary for 25 years you and your children would be considered citizens. Granted I doubt the colonel was intended it that way, it is how it could be interpreted.

Bottom line is that it just wouldn't work in the US. There's no way the public would support segregating an indentured foreign workforce into a branch of the military that gets sent to do the hard work while the rest of the force trains for war and never deploys. Half of the country would have their hair on fire. The other half would be split in half again between those that think it's a great idea...and those with some common sense and empathy to go with their family values. It's just a bad idea and doesn't represent what America is. The French can do it...well...because they're French. They treat everyone with a liiiiiiitle bit of snark that lets you know that they are better than you and they know it. Even when they aren't.

GySgt John Olson
That would be General Rolet!
You are correct gunny!

Although it is part of the French military, it is the only unit of the military that does not swear allegiance to France, but to the Foreign Legion itself.Sorta like our defense contractors, who are sworn to grab as much of our defense budget as they can for themselves. i.e. F-35, LCS's, DDG-1000's that can't fire the $1,000,000 rounds their guns were originally built for, just think of how much the USMC could have done with all the money poured into F-35 and LCS programs, now so much $$$$ tied up in F-35's they can't afford to scrap the whole project so keep throwing money at it and by the time it's battle ready it will be out-dated.