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Seventh installment

The next day I went to Visnjivac where IDS were based to see if I could transfer to their unit after speaking to the commander they agreed with my request and said in two days they were going to Bosnia for fifteen days and that I should report back with enough clothes to last me until I returned to Osijek, before leaving to go home I asked if Alan was there and they told me that he was in the house just around the corner so I decided to go and see him. The house had three floors and went in the back entrance and found quite a lot of people sitting around the table eating breakfast, I asked where Alan was and one of the girls told me in english that he was upstairs in bed so I decided to go and wake him. As I was climbing the stairs I thought how good it would be to be to be with others who had been in the same unit as myself after such a long time, I reached the room and went to find Alan asleep, Fred one of the other men from my old unit was just dressing and immediately shook my hand. Once I started speaking Alan woke up and got out of bed, he was delighted to see me and his first question was,
"what are you doing here so early in the morning"
"I'm going to Bosnia with you" I told him,
"it will be like old times again and I'm glad that you are here" Alan replied,
"Zaggy is on holiday but is due back tomorrow and then there will be three of us. This is Patrick, he is an ex-British soldier who has also spent five years in the Legion, there is another English man called Docy and he's out getting drunk somewhere"Alan said introducing me to Patrick.
The rest of the morning was spent talking to them and getting to know both Patrick and Docy but eventually I had to go and meet Paula. There was no way I was going to walk to Osijek so I decided to catch a tram, that was one of the perks of being a soldier in Osijek you never had to pay for public transport. When I arrived at the school I found Paula waiting so she put on her coat and we left, we reached the flat to find a parcel from my brother, it was a tape of the BBC documentary that had been shown on British tv. We didn't have a video but the neighbors downstairs did and we decided after dinner we would go downstairs and ask if we could use their video. The flat we went to was on the ground floor and through out the war whenever there was an air raid everyone went to their flat for the duration of the attack as it was safer than staying upstairs, the husband and I always got on well even though we didn't speak the same language. There was always an easy answer to the sound of falling shells was to have a drink and whenever Paula and I went to their flat the husband would offer us a drink, he was always hillairyios after he had had a few to drink and it was a great way to take your mind off what was happening outside. While Paula in their home I always felt the feeling of unity and hope, sitting there drinking and hoping that we would not see the bombardment through. The only time that everyone would go quiet was when one of us heard of an incoming morter, you sensed it was coming close and I was hoping that we were not the target. It's ironic that this horrible event that we have labeled war is the only thing that unites in such a way that they bond to each other in the hope that they will survive no matter how close the mortars came. The wife had no objections to us using the video and her daughter was studying english would translate for her mother, we sat down and watched. 

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