 According to an anonymous veteran of the unit , it mostly comprised recently discharged servicemen from the French forces who were having trouble adapting to civilian life . " They didn 't know how to do anything else , only how to jump with a parachute and obey orders , " he explained , " and they liked that kind of thing . " Others , he said , were members of the political far right who had joined up " to kill <unk> and blacks " , and some were criminals hoping to escape the attention of the French police . Each signed on for two years . The French @-@ speaking unit was placed in the Rhodesia Regiment ( <unk> ) as an " independent company " . The <unk> already had six of these ( made up of <unk> ) , so the Frenchmen became 7 Independent Company . 
