Army Men, Part 12 Desert Warriors

Now for the highlight of my army man collection.

This highly colorful set of soldiers also dates back to the late 1950s to 1960s.

These are standard sized French Foreign Legionnaires and Tuareg Arab warriors, probably inspired by the film 'Beau Geste'.

Interestingly, they all came from cereal boxes as the featured toy prizes.

That was back in the days when cereal box toys were actually substantial...and cool.

Moreover, one did not have to mail in box tops or a proof of purchase label and a dollar to get them.

Nowadays, cereal boxes only have dumb jokes and puzzles printed on the back of the box - and no toys.

Nope, back in the day, you had cellophane- wrapped prizes that you had to wait to get to the bottom of the box of cereal in order to retrieve.

My mom told me she remembers that these army men came from boxes of Special-K, which she bought regularly.

I seem to remember the soldiers coming in packs of four from each box. At first, my older brother and sister (by 7 and 5 years) glommed onto them, but as they grew older, and developed other interests, the figures passed on to me.

I've since learned that the figures were manufactured by Lido.  Each army is represented by four different poses, some being officers/chiefs, and the rest being rank and file soldiers. 

The figures are molded in many different colors and shades of plastic, some even being a mix of two different colors.

This collection consists of 39 figures from each army for a total of 78.

They are definitely  the veterans of countless bedroom floor battles.

For my Alamo re-creations these guys were placed in the role of Santa Ana's attacking Mexican forces, even though their appearance is not even close to being historically accurate.

Thank goodness for the miracle of adolescent imagination!

These soldiers had two common points of breakage: The Tuareg swordsman would often lose his raised sword, and the F.L. bayonet fighters would lose the musket stock.

For one of the latter, I attempted to make a new pose by cutting parts of the musket away to make a form of short sword or dagger. Using a match, I used the flame to softened his arm and bend it into a forward position. The blackened scorch marks still remain.

Even after so many battles, only 10 of these figures are broken in the above manner.

Needless to say, these armies have been long-retired!

Cheers...