The Legion's relationship with the citizens of Apt had been uneasy from the start but had seriously worsened after a sergent was brought back to base half dead after being knifed by two Arabs. Most of the régiment was about to be deployed to Kosovo but a covert call went out—the raditional rallying cry of A moi la Légion! Dressed in tenue de sortie uniforms to show everyone who they were, the 2e REG set off to wreck the town centre. The Arab community must have heard of the intended reprisal raid for they were waiting for them and a desert outpost fight on French soil broke out between légionnaires in képis and their historic enemy. Woodman and his personal merry men slipped into town in civilian clothing carrying lead pipes and bats and committed some of the most vicious hooligan thuggery—the envy of the roughest Manchester United fans. The gendarmerie was called in to quell the gang violence, and several légionnaireswere arrested. One sergent beat an Arab teenager with a nail-studded two-by-four, and was sentenced to a civilian prison term—he was a Turk. Later a Russian psychotic on leave lost his mind outside Marseille. He car-jacked an Arab family and murdered them. The leftist press had a field-day that once more brought the Foreign Legion's very existence into question.