Fourth lnstalment

While all this was going on we started having problems with discipline which included stealing from Serbian houses and drinking, these had to be sorted out before they escalated. It was decided that I would talk to the men as they seemed to respect me more than any of the other officers so one morning I gave them a speech,

"I will not hesitate in jailing any of you who bring the good name of PIV into disrespect, we have a good name all over Osijek as being a well disaplined and respected unit, your commander and I are not going to let you destroy that reputation just because of your stupidity"I said,

The French were also giving us problems but only because they didn't want to have their haircut like the rest of us so while I was speaking I also said to them, 

"if any of you are not happy with the fact that you have to have a haircut then you will have to leave the unit, it's simply a question of having pride in the way you look and you're unit and that you were better than any other unit in Osijek",

and to give them an example I called one of the men out and made him stand in front of the rest, 

"this man has shoulder length hair and he looks like a woman and we do not want any man to that looks like that to be part of our unit, if anyone disagrees and wants to leave then they should now step forward" after finishing I waited.

There were seven men who stepped forward and after speaking quietly with Ernie we decided that they should go. These men wanted to dress like soldiers, be paid like soldiers and were willing to die like soldiers but they were not willing to act like soldiers and until they did they would be no more than civilians who had been armed by the Government, I think that my little talk worked because after we had dismissed them from roll call everyone apart from the seven who had stood out who had long hair had it cut. Sometimes I had trouble understanding these people, what did they think they were in the army for, to have a holiday, they were supposed to be soldiers and with that job comes certain responsibilities, one of which is discipline. A lot of the commanders around the village continually commented how our men were so disciplined and they all wished that they're men were more like ours. Even Ron, who was always trying to get me to join his unit and train his men although Ernie never allowed that to happen. That decision was the only one that I could give him credit for, he knew that the men respected me and he didn't want to lose me. 

Almost everyone was in Livana, only a few were left in Briest to man the telephones and guard duty which was changed at regular intervals, it was nice to come back every night after spending the day in Livana and sleep in an almost empty house, it seemed much safer the closer I was to the front line, to hear the sounds of distant enemy fire was funnily enough comforting because I knew that as long as that sound was there my job in the Croatian army was safe. Here in an almost empty house I had to remember my own safety after Ernies so-called terrorist threat so I always slept with my weapons close at hand just in case of an alert, my Scorpian was under my pillow, my Ak-47,magazines and grenades on the chair next to my bed along with my clothes, I was always ready for anything,it was because I had this time on my own I would remain sane but would the others, Ernie with the help of Peter was becoming paranoid, he was one person who really needed to be on his own but of course he was not listening to anyone at the moment, I was probably the only person who had his head screwed on right and I for one was not paying too much attention to the threat of hit-men and terrorists. Every night I would telephone my parents, it was great to hear all the news from Wales but at the same time I would think to myself how good it was to still be in Croatia. It had been relatively quiet over the past few days and people were starting to believe that the war may be over. The people that had left Briest at the outbreak of war were slowly returning to their homes or what was left of them, there were people walking in the streets not worrying about the fact that a mortar attack may start at any moment and worse of all children were playing outside their homes, I knew that this may one day cause the death of an adult because I knew that if I saw a child playing and heard a mortar attack I would run to the child and get them to safety before it even landed even if it meant that I was risking my life to do it. As time went by I was beginning to care more and more about the Croatians, it was as if I had been born and lived my life here, it now seemed that I was not fighting as a foreigner but because I felt Croatian and I wanted my freedom as badly as they did, tomorrow was another day, another day of life.