An experienced policeman, who in the early 1990s went through the battlefields in Slavonia and Bosnia (where the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs officially did not participate), describes in his diary the disorganization, negligence in the police ranks, as well as the war operations.
He writes firsthand how his unit was completely surrounded by enemy fire on Đurđevdan (St. George’s Day) in 1999, as well as the three-day operation to rescue them. In one part, he also mentions an ambush in which they waited for a unit of Kosovo Albanians, none of whom survived.
This part of the diary begins with a sentimental farewell to his family in a Vojvodina village, then the horrors of war, selfishness and cowardice in the ranks of the Serbian police, a heroic rescue, then an even more sentimental return home, where his children do not recognize him, how much he has changed in two and a half months.
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We publish a part of the diary without editorial intervention:
“I wake up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat and, overcome with chills, I can’t catch my breath. The first thing I saw around me were my two sons – I cried, which hadn’t happened to me before. Hearing my sobs, the older one woke up: “Don’t go Kosovo, Dad, Kosovo was enough, Dad.” Everything to hell, all the heroes are dead. I gritted my teeth so as not to cry, picked up my combat backpack, transport bag, rifle, and headed straight for the gate. Quickly, in a flash, I kissed my family goodbye and left. My older son was sobbing – he wanted to come with me. I was leaving the village, the child’s tears still gently sliding down my face, mixing with mine, perhaps washing me for the last time. Before my eyes, the last image of normal life – a wife and two children, left behind, crying – slowly mixes with the scenes in the distance, the fire in the sky of NATO planes, the fire of air defense.
In the bus we took to Kosovo, the crew partied until dawn, all scum, pussies, sycophants, snitches. There were good guys too, but you could count them on the fingers of one hand.
We enter Kosovo, a horrific sight before us – columns of refugees, women, old people, children. We moved mainly at night, and after the air raid sirens stopped. What I saw with my own eyes then surpassed all those excursions in Slavonia and Bosnia.
Upon arrival at the first destination, they greeted us nicely: “What the hell have you come for, there are plenty of us too, we have nothing to do.” Our cruel leadership was headed by a certain captain who used to be a major but had screwed something up. We will guard the positions for three plus five days, in shifts. We spent the first night in some sports and recreation center, and around four in the morning we set off for our final destination. We hadn’t gone even twenty kilometers when the air raid began, they bombed the area where we had been before – later we learned that they had razed that center to the ground. I looked at the sky, crossed myself, and thanked God.
Everything there went somehow sloppy, everyone was trying to get out and didn’t want to be involved. Days passed, we monotonously stood guard and held one high-altitude point. When we arrived, spring hadn’t even started there yet, so we were somewhat carefree, but when the leaves came out, that’s when the sex started, they fucked our mothers the way they wanted.
The first shots turned numerous heroes into cowards, the terrible captain didn’t dare to fart behind the walls of the house where the headquarters was. Arguments became more and more frequent among us about who would go to the hill, so they assigned three groups of 12 hours each. I was extremely lucky, my first shift from six in the morning to six in the evening, we arrive at the hill – “pak-pak”, the famous Chinese ammunition.
It started fiercely, they were firing at us with everything they had, luckily inaccurately. I had never experienced being showered with gunfire for 10 hours before. Luckily, the shift came, and so day after day, we got used to it. It was terrifying when the planes started roaring, it’s like a swarm of mosquitoes, constant thunder, explosions.
May sixth, Ðurđevdan, the circumcised ones decided to sincerely congratulate us. From that day on, they fucked our mothers every day. The second group that went for supplies couldn’t break through, ammunition was running out, we had no fuel for the generators, communications no longer worked. The little we had in the vehicles, we used to charge the batteries, in order to use the field telephone with the headquarters. Of course, we communicated with the headquarters in Serbian, but we were always exposed. But suddenly someone remembered and called a colleague who spoke Hungarian, so we conveyed that we were in deep shit.
The operation to rescue us lasted three days. The Albanians were emboldened because ours couldn’t retaliate. We got out by trickery, thanks to some colonel to whom I am grateful to the grave.
We go to another destination, accommodation in one of the few unburnt or demolished Albanian houses – telephone line, television, electricity, bathroom. In a word – paradise. Which didn’t last long. We thought they would send us home. However, it’s war, and who gives a fuck about you. We went to the third position, where we waited for the Albanians in a horseshoe formation and herded them together. We tried to force them to surrender, however, it went as it had to, luckily it didn’t last long – we are going home.
We arrived in Niš or Bombay, as they called it then, and stopped in front of a store. Beer, crying, tears, music, song, it all started at once. I broke down. I took two bensendines from the doctor, then downed two beers… “Come on, brother, wake up, we’ve arrived!”
It’s dark, I don’t see any lights, I hear the air raid siren. “Where the hell have we arrived?” “Home, you drug-addicted motherfucker,” said the colleague who put up with me while I slept leaning on his shoulder for 500 kilometers.
I still don’t believe it, I pinch my cheeks, slap myself, the car stops in front of my house. I stood in front of the small gate, crossed myself three times, kissed the threshold, and looked at the sky: “God, thank you.” And then an explosion of joy, my wife runs out, the kids suddenly stop and crying run into the house saying “That’s not Dad, that’s not Dad.” I called them by name, it didn’t help. I was all overgrown, muddy, and smelly, I hadn’t had a shave in a month.
I look at the sky, the outlines of dawn, the sun is the same and equally bloody as in Kosovo.”
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Source: Luftika, Photo: Printscreen YouTube / AP Archive