Antoine is no more. He left on Good Friday. April 22, 2011. He is in the house of the Father. Antoine is Antoine Lecerf . Lieutenant General Antoine Lecerf. A master of war. A brilliant leader of men. One of the most extraordinary men I have known.

When you first met Antoine Lecerf, there was this frank and firm handshake, but there was immediately something else; something about charisma. Antoine Lecerf is said to have charmed snakes. He shook your hand and immediately there was a spell. He wanted to know right away if you were with him, if you were ready, if you supported his project. Which project ? There was a new one every five minutes. And he didn't drop any. He thought fast, but his friendship lasted a long time. He wanted to know if you were with him and he had an infallible way of knowing it: he shook your hand, he kept it, his face approached yours, he came to meet you, he wanted to know. He shook your hand, he kept it, his face approached yours and he wrinkled his left eyelid a little as if to improve his visual acuity, as if to be sure of what he was going to see, of what you were going to reveal to him. His squinted eye, that penetrating gaze was looking for something. He was looking for that little flame. He wanted to know if you too were animated. Antoine Lecerf only consorted with lively people. Nothing interested him more than to know if you were too, or even to a lesser degree if you could be (which was enough to satisfy him, because the potential had a special value for him). Antoine Lecerf chose you. And nothing was less the result of chance.

Antoine Lecerf also had this particular way of speaking. As I said, the ideas flowed from him. His mind did not accommodate any comfort. Ideas flowed and as if he knew in advance that he couldn't say everything, that it would be impossible for him to bring everything to a successful conclusion, that time would run out, he also puckered his mouth slightly on the left side. He made an effort on himself, he held back the overflow of vigor, he built a dike that allowed him to sort, select, refine, refine. Some would call it impatience. There was impatience in him. But a self-inflicted impatience. Not this unbearable impatience to others. No. A completely controlled impatience, which he modeled at his leisure to formulate for you only its essence, its juice, which seemed to him unavoidable.

I knew Antoine Lecerf, I was 23 years old. I was a very young second lieutenant. Not quite weaned. I arrived in one of the finest regiments in the world: the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment in Nîmes. Lieutenant-Colonel Lecerf was second in command. I spoke to him the first time in the officers' mess. I remember like yesterday what he said to me: “If you are here, it is because you deserve it, but now you have to deserve it even more. He had a constant search for the perfect word. The search for the perfect word in a soldier goes through the visualization of a concordant action. It is difficult for a civilian to understand. It is difficult to understand in our time. For Antoine Lecerf, this research was obligatory and the time could well unfold its mediocrity, he did not yield to it in any way.

Antoine Lecerf left for the desert of Operation Daguet with “Citadelle” by Saint Exupéry and “Le Coran” in his kit. I was still a very young junior officer in the General Staff of the 6th Light Armored Division under the orders of another very great leader, Colonel Jean-Claude Lesquer. When Antoine Lecerf returned from Daguet, I was wearing the green beret, I had been transferred to the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment, I had worked in the rear base with the formidable Captain Benoît Toulin of the 1st company to prepare the show that we wanted to give for the city of Nîmes, for its unwavering support. I had written and read a long text which accompanied the entry of the Regiment into the city. Antoine Lecerf spoke to me about it two or three times afterwards. The text began with these words: “It is men who make history, but it is history that gives them their strength”. He always wanted to dig deeper. Understand a new idea. Approach the sentence from another angle. He was full of a desire for perfectionism. We talked again, months later when I visited him at the minister's office where he was stationed. He asked me how this absurd idea had come to me that History did not exist because it was constantly being written. And I replied that I had put myself in the shoes of our dear legionnaires to write this. They, who never dwelled on one of their exploits and yet most of them deserved a mausoleum! ¹ . We had joked in his office, right next to the minister's office. His faithful friend Lieutenant-Colonel Bruno Germain had found us. We had talked about the past of course, since time had passed.

Antoine Lecerf could also punch you for nothing. Many have thus received a cold shower without expecting it. It took me some time to understand this attitude which, even if it was not frequent, was unexpected and left people cautious. Antoine Lecerf could therefore seem a little unfair at times. He was just announcing something about you that you hadn't yet realized. The flickering of the little flame. He saw a universe that was cracking and immediately remedied it with force. There should be no room for mediocrity to infiltrate.

Years later, I remember Antoine Lecerf at a dinner with entrepreneurs and industrialists being teased by the invited guests – the height of the height! — by a former captain fascinated by civilian life and its splendor. I remember this former officer rejoicing in the "mili" a little stuck in the armholes in a consumerist dialogue. Lecerf had remained extremely courteous, quickly realizing that the guests present could not even touch upon the military reality. Antoine Lecerf testified to the troops, or, more precisely, he was there to testify to life among the troops. Antoine knew that only values ​​gave meaning to life, that only values ​​could bring people together and give them that extra soul that allows them to achieve exploits. He also knew the time was closed to this idea.

Antoine Lecerf loved life, youth, the radiance of youth. When he was still a lieutenant-colonel, he honored the word lieutenant in his rank. Even if there is a rule according to which lieutenant-colonels pride themselves on having both ranks, only he, to my knowledge, could take advantage of it. And from everything I've read or heard of Antoine Lecerf in his later career, he always kept this feeling, this way of a lieutenant, close to his men, easy to get in touch with and always on the lookout for. an improvement in the military condition. He was given the nickname of "shady" between lieutenants, because he always added a ladle of things to do. If we met him or if he summoned us, we were certain to leave with a bag full of innovations… Constantly we had to do more and better, and for him, the lieutenants were the bulwark against weariness.

I will not repeat here the force of conviction of Antoine Lecerf. We could read here and there his rants on the training of military executives , on the fate reserved for the French flag during a contemporary art exhibition... Antoine Lecerf did not mince his words, created a bewitching dynamic, personified the respect. Antoine Lecerf was unique and authentic. Who else but him could have declared: “Why does a young Frenchman die in Afghanistan? France, the tricolor, no, bullshit! He dies for his buddy, his sergeant, his lieutenant, his colonel. Why ? Because, when you come close to death on a daily basis, a sacred alliance is created. It's just called love." He leaves a beautiful legacy to any young person who wishes to embrace a military career, because he undoubtedly represents a figure: the figure of the French officer. He placed himself in this tradition. He is one of those who embody it forever. Ernst Jünger wrote: “It has been given to us to live in the invisible rays of great feeling, this will remain our inestimable privilege. It was given to me to serve in the shadow of Antoine Lecerf, it will remain an inestimable privilege. Rest in peace, General.