Oh what a lovely war!

Driving towards zagreb I saw my first signs of the conflict an old soviet lorry with Cro Army written on the side rubbled towards the Slovenian border, but my own experience of things is that all because it says it on the tin it doesn't have to be the same inside.
After a refuel I drove into Zagreb main and took a little tour round the town, there were no uniforms on the streets except for the dark blue police dotted around.
I needed information and I needed it rather quickly, the UK numberplate and the right hand drive car was getting attention and it would not be long before I was stopped and the contents of my boot discovered, and I did not need this at all.
I stopped at a post office hoping that I would gain at least a little information there.
The inside was like a scene from a 1950's film people qued for phones on the wall hoping to get an international connection, I ventured to ask a question of a passerby and got mo where English may be an international language but it is not a universal one, A young man approached me and asked if he could help, I bantered some rubbish and asked him how the war was going and got the information I needed Croatia still held Zagreb! fantastic!
I decided that honesty is the best policy and came straight out with the fact that I had come to join their army and help with the effort.
The young chap was more than helpful, next thing I knew we were driving through traffic to the Ministry of Defence buildings.
I got there and reported to reception with my helper and we were shown up to an office on the second floor.
All offices that I were to visit looked the same, deep set windows, high ceilings and padded doors, the padding was an attempt to prevent eves droppers in a paranoid state, the man behind the desk wore a crumpled suit, he did not introduce himself just looked at me and fired off questions at my escort his main interest seemed to be if I had bought weaponry with me, the answer was no going AWOL was one thing to go AWOL with a weapon is just asking for major problems.
he told my escort that I should go to OBUKA KOMANDO in kumravec, ( a small village in the mountains and by chance the birth place of Josip Broz Tito the father of former Yugoslavia).
My escort had really gone above and beyond the call of duty in his help for me and with rough directions and an assurance that the area was safe, I headed off looking for a base in the mountains.
I almost back tracked to the Slovenian border and stopped at a little road side Kavana and asked if any one spoke English, Two very drunk but helpful Croats told me in German that their friends wife spoke fluent English and that they would take me to her.
I drove and my passengers gave me directions through a dark and rainy night to a house on the side of a mountain, The Croat's still roaring drunk went and roused the occupant's, who led me to the kitchen where a bottle appeared and they started to consume vast quantity's of home made alchol, I was on edge to say the least as one of the Croats had already explained to me that this was partisan country so I decided to opt out of the offers of home brew. my host kindly offered me coffee, a drink I love with all my heart.
the man came back from the stove with a small cup of black frothy stuff which to my mind looked and tasted nothing like coffee, it was black thick sweet and tasted like ground burnt floorboards, in fact it was horrible! not wanting to offend my hosts I took a few sips and then decided to down it in one as this would seem to be the best way to consume it without tasting it.
This was probably a mistake as the bottom of the cup was full of coffee grounds and as soon as it was gone my host pored me another cup, I had been waiting now for almost half an hour and regrettably was coming to the end of my second cup of coffee, the host looked at me and his friend asked in German "trinken ze kakou". Kakau I thought well the coffee was awful and this other drink sounded remarkably like POO to me so I was defiantly going to give that a miss!
fortunately I was saved by the appearance of the lady of the house and a buzz of excitement ensued as they explained what they thought I was looking for.
the lady the only other sober person then asked me exactly what I was looking for, I explained that I had been asked to report to OBUKA KOMANDO for induction into the military and that was where I was trying to get too, we all piled back into the car briefly stopping before the main road so that one of my passengers could vomit by the road side.
The KOMANDO was a group of buildings built into the side of a mountain more like a sports complex than a military training centre, we were challenged at a check point and one of my passengers explained the nature of my visit and the guard waved us through, my reception at the main desk was a little more guarded than my previous meetings, probably due to my entourage of drunks, who I could see were not winning over the desk Sargent. the Sergeant managed to get hold of a Canadian Croat to come forward and speak with me.
the crux of the situation was that they were not sure if they wanted a forgein national in the building and that the commandant of the base was not present and the decision would lay with him, however there was also the problem of where could I stay the night so it was agreed that I should stay with one of the troops in a double room and await the commandant's return in the morning.
I was shown up to a room on the second floor occupied by a young man who spoke limited English and prepared to bed down for the night, we spoke for a while and he explained that they were a special ops group and did not do front line duty's only going where they might be required. he produced a 9mm Browning from under his pillow and asked me if I knew anything about them, my answer was a simple yes and he passed it over. I did a quick field strip and assemble to prove my point, as I finished assembling the weapon the desk Sargent appeared and a quick exchange in Croatian ensued between the lad and the Sargent.
I did not understand it but I could imagine what it was about, as I passed the weapon back I said that I agreed and he should not have passed the weapon to a stranger with or without bullets, they didn't know who I was and yes these were uncertain times so you could never be too careful.
In the morning the commandant had still not returned so the Sergent decided that it would be best that I return to Zagreb.
when I left I took the three Canadian Croat’s into Zagreb with me, they told me that the police were forming a unit of the foreigner volunteers and that I would be better of with them my lack of Croatian was a major problem. We went up together to the Tuskanac Military Police station where they spoke to the guard for me. By the time we reached the base the car was almost out of fuel, I had no money to refill it and didn't expect that I would be using it again so I happily sold it to them on the spot for $200 with a warning that it would be very foolish to take it into western Europe unless of course they wanted problems with the German police.
The guard directed me to a group of modern buildings; they looked more like some kind of social club than a base. I went into what looked like a large cafe where there were groups of soldiers milling around inside, I asked them where to put my kit and they pointed to some stairs that went down to a bowling alley and a firing range. The whole range (22cal.) had been turned into a make shift dormitory. Camp beds lined the walls at spaced intervals. The whole place was dusty and dim. Only the buts were well lit, piles of empty shell cases littered the floor around the buts, amongst the brass I noticed the occasional 9mm shell, the rubber back stops were tattered in places showed signs that they hadn’t been made to take anything bigger than .22 cal.
Spread around the room was groups of soldiers from various Croatian units. I found a small group of foreigners there towards the end of the range. I went over to talk to them and they said that one of their people and the guy who was organising them had gone into Zagreb to sort something out for them.
As far as experience was concerned only one of them seemed to have been a regular soldier. He was wearing a British uniform with corporal stripes and a Stafford’s beret. As everyone else was in uniform I dumped my stuff on an available cot close to two eastern Europeans and changed into my uniform.
I spoke to the man from the Stafford's for a little while, the thing that struck me as odd about him was that the man did not seem to recognise my beret? The Stafford’s had been the Irish Hussars infantry support during the Gulf war, so it really didn’t ring true to me that this man could be who he said he was!
In a friendly manner I pointed out that perhaps he was not quite what he claimed to be, he then backed down a bit and said that he was actually from the Staffordshire’s T.A regiment, which in my book is something completely different.
When the others came back from the city I met the T.A mans nephew who was a completely different type of man, a short thickset honest man who had served with the Queens regiment I took an immediate liking to him. He was quiet and reserved, yet at the same time had a certain confidence in himself.
They had been to the Zagreb marine institute where the Croatians had been planing some kind of raid on the gunboats on the river Vuka. The Yugoslav’s had bought there fresh water navy up close to the besieged town of Vukovar and were mercilessly bombarding it. The institutes’ answer had been to make an attempt at making their own type of magnetic mines. There was however a number of draw backs with these things. Mainly they were heavy, hard to set and absolutely no equipment was being made available for the job. From basics like maps and swimming fins to luxuries like weapons and radios there was nothing available to support the operation.
I very much doubt that they ever did get someone for the operation. The mission when you look at it realistically was to hump 40 kg of explosives and timers across a hot combat zone and to then pass through 4km of occupied territory to an area next to a siege. Then to set the fuses (max 4 hours delay fuse) on the riverbank reseal the mines and swim out into one of Europe’s busiest waterways (in the winter) with no equipment, attach the charges and swim back. No way, as this never happened during the course of the war they definitely never found anyone mad enough to do it or perhaps they never asked the right people.
shortly after my arrival the military police came piling into the cellar, they were speaking to one of the police Sargent upstairs.
They came over to me and accused me of one of the worst things ever! they said that I was French!!! now I was justifiably insulted by this and then they asked if I had any tattoo's this I could prove beyond doubt and stripped my shirt off to show clean skin. French! how dare they!
we were to sit in the firing range for two days and get to know each other reasonably well, there was a young Finnish guy only 17 with a liking for knives as most Finns do, a German who claimed to be an American soldier, but spoke no English. Two Bulgarians who were quiet and for language reasons kept themselves to them selves, A young Englishman again only 17 like the Finn, a rather strange English man who should I say had a number of issues. the guy from the Stafford's, his Nephew from the queens regiment and a young American.
the young American hung round with the weird Englishman who let us say did not blend with the group and I would describe as an angry person.
I can not remember the Englishman's name but things came to a head the next day when he was seen outside repeatedly stabbing a sandbag with a bayonet, I spoke to Robert about the knife incident and he confided in me that the guy also had a hand grenade that he had stolen from the back of a vehicle too!
Perhaps its wrong what we did but the safety of others was at stake, we dragged him out of bed and under the threat of extreme violence stood him by the wall and searched his kit looking for the grenade, which we could not find and then had him thrown out the base, The guy was crying as we did this but he was a danger to himself and most of all us he had to go!!
The next day Vukovar fell,the fall of Vukovar could be compared to the fall of Srebrenica, but it was a pivotal point of the war. The conscript army of Yugoslavia suffered horrendous losses taking the city and exhausted but well armed it heralded the dawn of the para militarys.
The Croatians in the cellar took the loss very badly and the very dramatic Balkan hysteria knows no end there was a lot of shouting and wailing and weapons cocked despite the 150 odd miles between us and the city it seemed we were going there now!
We made ready our kit and were issued uniforms, and they were uni formal size 10 boots, 40"waist trousers and massive jackets. The man issuing them said they were winter uniform, even so for someone with a 28" waist and size 7 boots they would need a lot of packing out so I returned them just taking the webbing belt.
In the morning we boarded the bus, half a loaf of bread a tin of meat paste each, I looked around me the two Bulgarians were there, the American, the German and four Brits. The only Croat on the bus was driving it, looked like it was going to be a lovely war.