Civil war in the former Yugoslavia was halted by the United Nations for gross violations of humanitarian rights. Delta Force had several missions in Bosnia, a former constituent state of Yugoslavia, and I was “stuck” there for a number of years chasing and apprehending civil war criminals for the Hague. At the time, Bosnia was fighting for independence as a sovereign country just as the other five former states of Yugoslavia were struggling for their own sovereignty.
Given how much time I spent there it was statistically certain that I would have to spend Christmas and New Year’s in-country. I was young and married to a strong and independent women. We had no children so my life back in the States was stable enough to allow me to be away for the end-of-year holidays.
For the cease of hostilities, Bosnia was divided into three main ethnic factions; Muslims, who were mostly concentrated in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital; Catholic Croatians; and Serbian Orthodox, mostly in the northern sector of Bosnia bordering the Republic of Serbia (another state born out of Yugoslavia’s dissolution). Sarajevo was teeming with enclaves of all three factions. The neighborhood I lived in, for instance, was of predominantly Serbian ethnicity, a thing I did not know, but was soon to find out.
Christmas and New Year’s came and went in the American Embassy where the control of Bosnia was administered by a UN-appointed commander, in our case, a five-star American Army general. We could use sparkler-class pyrotechnics to celebrate the new year, but nothing that could go “BANG”, as the whole country was in a tenuous state of ceasefire with folks jumpy with firearms.
On January 13, I turned in for the night as usual. I thought about a particular neighborhood that I drove though occasionally on my way to the embassy. It was a hood that was suddenly decorated with colored lights, snowmen, Christmas trees and just the deluxe set of annual Christmas decor. It was a hood occupied by mainly Croatians, you see, and Croatians are predominantly Catholics by faith.
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As I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came the crash of a high volume of small arms fire that ripped through my sector of the city. It sounded like it might have been a hundred guns or more reporting their existence. It was amazing how the entire volume of fire ripped through the night at full strength; skirmishes like it take a little time to crescendo and build up to full strength. This small arms fire opened abruptly and at full strength.
I grabbed my .45 caliber Colt pistol that was always within arms reach and rolled out of bed onto the floor. I next grabbed my radio and called in to the other Delta men who were on my same radio frequency.
“I have a heavy volume of small arms going off in my sector. It seems like it could be a hundred guns exchanging fire. I’m going to need to be evacuated from this house and brought to the embassy as soon as possible.”
“Negative, Geo… your sector of the city is an all Serbian neighborhood. The Serbs still celebrate the new year which falls on the 14th day of the month on their calendar.”
I noted the time that was on my watch and found it to have just rolled over from the 13th of the month to the 14th of the month at midnight. It turns out the Serbs use the Gregorian calendar but still celebrate their past use of the Julian calendar whose new years day falls on the 14th of the first month of the year. Well, now I knew the ethnicity to be in fact all Serbian in my neck of the city.
I stood then in my room, contemplated my situation, and thought:
“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
I stepped outside in my tiny backyard, raised my pistol, and fired off the 11 bullets I had in my magazine. My contribution to the Julian new year was complete. The small arms fire around the hood slowly petered out and there was peace in the air again. I changed magazines to introduce a full one back to my pistol, chambered a round, refilled my empty Wilson magazine with 11 bullets, and re-holstered my pistol to make it safe again.
What a decent little story I would have to tell my Delta brothers in the morning!
By Almighty God and with honor,
geo sends
Feature Image: Opening ceremony of EYOF 2019 in Koševo Stadium in Sarajevo, Bosnia, February 2019. (Photo by Smooth O)
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