Skip to main content

Chapter I Future for me and Croatia

The date is now the Tenth of December and I have been in Croatia for almost fifteen months. For the past two months I have done hardly anything only try to get home to see my parents and go in and out of hospital, since the death of Alan I have had two operations on my ears to replace the shattered ear drums with new plastic ones, I am at the moment still on sick leave. For both of those operations I was supposed to stay in hospital for seven to ten days but of course I didn't, I only stayed for six on each occasion. The city of Osijek is carrying on as if there hadn't been a war, the only reminder that there was a war were the battle scared buildings and filled graveyards. The people that were once in uniform were now in civilian clothes and if they were liked and did a good job during the war then they were now being repaid with good jobs. Most of my Croatian friends still live in Osijek but I am the only foreigner left in this city that I fought so long to defend. The war continues in BiH with no military intervention, the citizens of Sarajevo continue to die in their hundreds and the refugees leave their war ridden homeland in their thousands. The Serbian war monger president is still in control and the re-elected president of Croatia continues his duties. The UN are still between us and the aggressors and the third of Croatia that they stole because of their superior strength is still in their hands, the refugees from all the villages in the occupied areas are still awaiting the time when they can return to their homes or what might be left of them.
As I continue this final chapter I think to myself what about the people that I have grown to know, love and hate during my time in this beautiful country, where are they now? The Croatians from my first unit have all found some sort of job, the officers who were all foreigners have all left the country.My one time commander Ernie has been demobilised and I can't think about the items that the unit acquired throughout the war, whatever happened to the televisions, video and electrical equipment, there were rifle scopes, radio equipment, computer and fax machine, what happened to all those items, I wonder did Ernie sell them or reluctantly give them to the Croatian army, I doubt that I will ever find out but I tend to think that he sold them. The only thing that I definitely know is that he is traveling all over Europe and to America for James wedding and here I am penniless with not enough money to go home, is there no justice in this world, James the pretty American boy is married and living happily in the state's, Mark and Peter are trying to get relief supplies into Croatia and Kevin is somewhere in Bosnia but whether he is alive or dead I am not sure, the British that visited us while we were in Osijek are somewhere in the UK and the rest of the foreigners I have no idea about. The Croatian officers that I knew have all been given good jobs, Geordie is not only the president of the local council but president of one of the local political parties and no doubt heading for higher things, my old commander of 160 brigade is second in charge of the local police in Osijek, Ivan from the Yellow Submarine is not only a partner in a local nightclub Vega but is also the director of the Hotel Osijek, some of the others from the Yellow Submarine have been given jobs on the local television station that was set up after the war supposedly finished, the only ones not to have been given jobs are the real fighters who still insist on staying close to the front line, Peter and Kirk are still in Bosnia battling away with their enemies, their time will come to get a good job if they are still alive to enjoy it.
What about me, well I'm still with Paula but her daughter is getting the better of my will to stay with her mother, how much longer I can hold on to my dream with a happy life with Paula, no one can tell but I hope that I can still achieve it. This woman seems to have been chosen for me by mother nature is something that I have longed for, she has and still doing everything that she can to help me without asking for anything in return. There is never a happier time for me than when I am in her arms but recently because of things that have happened I have not felt the same kind of warmth, affection and love, Diana is spoilt and neither Paula or her mother want to change the way she is, I am constantly being made to feel small by this eleven year old brat but what can a man do when he is hopelessly in love with her mother. For the time being I have to put up with it as I have no money, no alternative accommodation and now I feel no chance of staying with Paula. For not so many months she was telling me how much she loved me and I felt that she meant it but now she can't even bear being touched by me which therefore leads me to have suspicions as to whether she has another man and this breeds mistrust which isn't a good thing to have in any relationship, why has all this changed I ask myself but I can't answer as I don't know but I will put up with my life as it is now and hope that we can recapture what we once had,after all why should she be bothered with a foreigner when she has her mother and daughter, her church and her job, these three things fill up every available waking hour for her and there is none to spare for me, the only thing that she can not take away from me is the vision of watching her sleep and thinking about times that have passed when we shared our happiness together. The words that I am writing now are completely out of character with the man the I was before I came to Croatia but now it's all changed. The school that she is director of is doing well and I hope she continues to be in charge as in my opinion she is the right woman for the job. My parents in Wales are still insisting that I leave the army and I am still declining, they never understand why I joined this war and perhaps they never will, at least they are alive and well but that doesn't go for everybody that I know. The body of Eric, my friend in the first few weeks in Croatia may very well be buried in Laslovo as the photo that I have seems to confirm it and I have yet to meet or talk to his mother, my long time friend Alan is buried in Portugal and at the funeral I was told that they buried him with two flags drapped over his coffin, the Portuguese and the Croatian, may they both rest in peace as their war's are now over. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ninth installment

The remains of the unit that were in this position left and we followed them, we went around the outskirts of the village and back into the center. The rest of PIV or what was left of it were already there, we found out that Colin just after he had reached the main hq in the center of the village. We had to go back to the end of the street to see what was happening but as soon as we arrived we came under heavy fire as the enemy had pinpointed this house as our new front line, there was no way that we could reach Eric without getting everyone who attempted a rescue killed and because of the amount of enemy fire we had to fall back, on the way Alan started going berserk saying that he had to go back to fight, he was shooting everywhere so George calmed him down and asked him to take care of the elderly and that seemed to work. By now the village command had decided it was time to leave but first we had to wait for the mortar unit to reach safety. We could not get anywhere near under cons...
Post a Comment
Read more

Third installment

Day in, day out, it was the same routine, sleep, guard, fire off a few rounds in the general direction of the enemy, there was not much else to do, the main thing was to stay alive by keeping inside every time mortars or artillery came flying in to the village. The only time that there was a lot of activitie was when we were buzzed by planes, everybody would rush outside, Ernie would jump on the transporter and fire the machine gun, I used to run to the machine gun that was mounted on a tripod at the end of the street and also fire at the plane, everybody else would be outside firing their ak47s, there was not much chance of hitting it or bringing it down but it took only one lucky shot and that would give everyone hope. After the plane had gone out of sight that the transporter was Ernies because he had shot at the enemy leaving the damaged transporter with a sniper rifle, so Geordi the commander in charge of the defense of Osijek had given it to Ernie, I also found out that he worked...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seventh installment, sorry it's a bit late but its hard to write what I wrote and remember.

The next day it was awfully quiet, the calm before the storm perhaps, nothing much for breakfast so we decided to try and lay the land line. So off we went house to house laying the wire behind us and then the mortars started again so we hit the ground, lying down was the safest if caught outside, there were pieces of shrapnel hitting the wall near to us and it was not a very safe place to be so we decided to make a run for it, that was the quickest I had ran in a long time, it is amazing how fast your legs move when you're life is at risk, "that was a nice little bit of exercise" Eric said laughing, "yes but it would have been better if we weren't dodging pieces of metal" I replied also laughing.  Everyone was there apart from those on guard duty and during the night it had changed from two to three, so I sat down on the bar stool and Eric went behind the counter looking for something to eat and all of a sudden bang and I fell off the stool, they all came t...
Post a Comment
Read more