Now and Then July 6, 2005

My first post... not really, but it is the first for the theme of this blog.

NOW..

I'd like to say thank you to my family, my friends at home, and all the friends I made while deployed to Afghanistan. The support I got from everyone was awesome. Also, thank you John for posting my stuff from Afghanistan. I am back in the states, but not quite home. I am providing public affairs support to the U.S. Joint Forces Military Skills Training Center in San Antonio until the middle of July, then I go to do the same thing at the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Virginia. Then in August, I head to Belgium to cover the US Joint Forces Military Pentathlon Team at the NATO Military Skills Competition. I was thinking about going to the Philippines for a 179-day tour, but my daughter suggested that volunteering to be gone for Christmas for two years in a row, and missing my first grandchild's first Christmas, would not be a good thing. Maybe right after Christmas so I can be home for her first birthday. I'll keep you posted. Anyway, here's a link to some of my products from the training center.

Of special note to those hockey fans out there, Brian Gornick, pro hockey player previously for the Cincinnati Ducks and now the Syracuse Crunch, is a captain in the Air Force Reserve and is attending a Leader Development and Advanced Military Skills Training course and will be trying out for a spot on the US Pentathlon Team.

THEN...

When the last of the Stabilization Forces (SFOR) left Bosnia and Herzegovina in November 2004, one of the media specialists that worked in the Task Force Eagle PAO office on Eagle Base wrote a 'goodbye letter'. The Castle Argghhh recently ran the letter from Aleksander Ilic of a reminder of why we were in the Balkans, and why it took so long to leave. I worked with Alek when I was there with SFOR 13 from March until September 2003. Alek was a very cool guy. He fought against the Serbs during the war. I have to apologize because I don't remember what his rank was, and if I did, I would hesitate to mention it in case some Serb asshole is reading this and wants to take revenge. Alek told us stories about some of the things the Serbs did. Like the story about the hotel overlooking the Sava river. The Serbs took over the hotel, and would go into the village and kidnap women and girls, bring them back to the hotel, rape them, kill them, and dump their bodies into the river. The only reason it stopped..THE ONLY REASON..was because the bodies were clogging up the dam downstream and one of the Serb villages was being inconvenienced. NOT because it was wrong...NOT because they were slaughtering women and girls, but because their electricity kept getting shut down because of the bodies. What dungheap of humanity did this scum crawl out of...?
Alek and I drove to Sarajevo, a little over two hours from Eagle Base, to drop off our commander who had to pull a couple weeks of PAO duty at the US HQ there. We drove by apartment buildings that were targeted by the Serb artillery in the hills overlooking the city. Most still had gaping holes, and bullet and RPG pockmarks. No military targets. Just apartment buildings in non-Serb neighborhoods. Alek took me to the Olympic Stadium. Standing at the top of the stadium, we could see for miles in all directions. He pointed out one of the big cemeteries. The white crosses spanned over hills and down into valleys. Alek said it was easy to tell which ones were from the war because they were white and the rest were dark. He also pointed out a smaller cemetery near the edge of the stadium. Before the war, it had been a practice soccer field. The cemeteries ran out of room so they filled the soccer field. Most of the funerals were held at night because the Serb scum snipers would shoot mourners. They shot anybody and everybody in non-Serb neighborhoods. Grandmothers, 5-year old kids..didn't matter. They were non-Serbs, so therefore targets of opportunity. At the stadium was also a building that had been used as a woman's hospital. There were several large holes from missile attacks. The reason..? They weren't Serbs. The stories go on.....

One last thing. In June 2003, we raided a hidden bunker. Inside were thousands of rounds of machine gun ammo, mortar rounds, RPGs, missiles. All new stuff. All in a bunker that had been checked cleared in Sep 2002. They were brought in and hidden, waiting for the day that NATO and US forces left so that the Serbs would already be armed when they started again. Because they knew the EU was taking over security in Bosnia. The same pu**ies who stood by and let it all happen the first time. But the patriots like Alek will fight again, and with a little help, maybe it won't be as bad as the first war. And when Alek calls, I may just have to take a little European vacation.....