Everyone (in the US, anyway) seems to be jumping on the "we bailed out the French cowards, so they owe us!" bandwagon, but nobody much seems to bring up the fact that French support was crucial in the success of the American Revolution.... in which conflict the Brits were the bad guys.

"How strange it must have been for these French troops and their new-found colonial allies, some of whom had fought each other as enemies barely fifteen years earlier, to stand shoulder to shoulder in armed conflict with France’s ancient enemy and the colonist’s blood kin! In the end, these French soldiers became the hard anvil upon which the new American nation was forged and the chains of British imperial domination were finally broken."