My memoir ‘Porodica’ is intended only for family members, but this section of ‘Porodica’, titled ‘Snapshots’, may be read by the public. Perhaps you will gain insight into this long-forgotten civil war (1991-2001) in what was once a country we proudly called Yugoslavia.

In what seems like a lifetime ago, despite some financial issues, the future of our nation seemed full of endless possibilities. In 1980, our dictator, Josip Tito, had finally died and after some squabbles, we had a decent president, Slobodan Milošević.

Sadly, in the early 1990s, we fought among ourselves for scraps of land, which eventually led to all-out civil war. At the outbreak of our Yugoslav civil war, civilians like us did our best to go about our lives. My dream profession as a photographer never happened but I managed as a laborer of sorts. If the fighting was close, it was bad. Otherwise, life was fine, all things considered.

To us, the war actually made sense in a way because it had a rhythm to it, but I assume like any other war, in time, things simply disintegrated for both soldiers and civilians alike. No place was spared from the raging war.

There were many snapshots of events I wrote about but wish I had not, I will not share those. The snapshots I share are not about any war heroes or acts of bravery, they are about those caught in the middle who simply fought to survive. They are about select people I want remembered from this long-forgotten civil war. They are of kind people I knew and I want you to remember them as well.

These snapshots take place in the city of Sarajevo, home of the 1984 Winter Olympics and when I arrived in 1994, home to 350,000 people under siege.

During the war, I played a lot of card games. I ate many meals where the food was poor but the company made up for it. I saw a few tanks up close. I interacted with many soldiers but that was what you did back then when you try to save a country which could not save itself.

In the summer of 1993, I saw a stranger chopping wood for a family I had known my entire life. I knew everyone in town but did not know him. I spoke with this stranger and apparently he was a drifter, a displaced man, which was common then. That drifter became my best friend and motivated me to drift as well.

My father and most others hoped for a Greater Serbia, taking scraps of land from the others. That was in opposition to my friend and I who believed Yugoslavia could somehow be pieced back together into a united brotherhood of states as it once was. It was unpopular in our area but that is what we felt, politically.

In 1993, my friend and I left to help Serbs in need, that was our intent. We certainly helped whenever we could but as proud Serbs, we also helped our homeland as well. We were never aid workers nor were we ever soldiers. Despite safely risks, at all times, all sides knew we were Serbs.

My best friend’s name was Dragan.

About a year before I met Dragan, his wife, Anja, along with several other Serbs from their town, had been murdered by a vengeance squad. Admittedly, all sides had squads like these, unethical men who killed civilians based on their identity and, more importantly, where they lived.

Dragan only survived because they thought he was dead. Dragan told me that he and Anja were beaten unconscious. While unconscious, they kicked him in his right side with their boots until they broke his ribs, intending for him to quickly die from a punctured lung. Later, when he regained consciousness, he found what had happened to Anja.

Twenty of Dragan's townspeople died that day, but three young women were murdered in a very public and extremely brutal manner, Anja was one of those three. I will never write more about Anja than that.

Anja's death was a truly devastating loss for Dragan. Without children or other relatives, he found himself alone without his Anja and without a home. That made me his only family during the war, and he became the only family I really had then.

Dragan was like a magnet, attracting people in need. Whether it was old people needing roof repairs or wood cut, we tried our best to do what we could to help people. I did the heavy lifting while he did the fine tuning due to his lung problems. We did various sorts of labor and usually ate home cooked meals. Eventually we drifted into the city of Sarajevo, which was the one place we should never have gone.

Dragan was never a coward nor did he lash out at others. He was simply a sad but good man with a kind heart.

The best part about Dragan was that kindness. He always managed to have sweets in his pockets but I do not think he ever ate any, he simply saved them for others to have. He would trade valuable things just to get sweets to put in his pockets. He would always have something to give away to people he thought needed them. That was just what he did and that was who he was deep inside.

Of course, there were bloody things we both did during the war but I want to remember Dragan in this way first. He was a sad man who made others happy. I am not naive and know he wanted to join Anja in death but he was never suicidal. He wanted to help save our homeland first. Maybe afterwards, move on to join her.

Dragan was the older brother I never had. He and Anja are part of my ‘porodica’, my family. I doubt this joke he told me will make sense to anyone, but know why it is here, it is a memorial to Dragan. Sadly, it is the only thing I remember him saying word for word so it is precious.

“Yugoslavia was like forcing cats and dogs to share a bed. They did not fight because Tito cracked his whip, but when Tito died, they bit at each other’s throats.” - At the time, I thought his joke was funny, the truth in the form of a joke. That one joke gave me a sort of defiant happiness and was actually the deciding reason I drifted off into Greater Yugoslavia with Dragan, to calm the cats and dogs down. Sadly, the dogs bit too deep and Yugoslavia fell apart.

Dragan was murdered in front of me in Sarajevo. It hurt me deeply, and it always will.

It was strange but in 2010, I thought I saw Addy eating at a fast food restaurant in America. The young woman I saw definitely was not the Addy I had met in Sarajevo years ago, but she looked identical to her with her wide spaced, very dark eyes and an unusual thin upper lip.

This young woman saw that I was staring at her and it made both of us uncomfortable. So I got up from my table and went up to her...

In my best English, I asked, "I am sorry for staring at you, but I have a question. I am very good at remembering faces and you look exactly like someone I knew a long time ago, but I know you cannot possibly be her."

I paused, "Do you have maybe a relative named Addy? She would have been your age in the mid-1990s and she looks identical to you?"

The woman replied, "I don't think so, no."

Disappointed, I thanked her and turned to walk away.

The woman said, "Is she your friend?"

I told her, "She was. She was kind to me a long time ago in a long-forgotten war." Breaking contact with her eyes, I muttered to the floor, "She was a strong, decent woman."

The woman saw it was emotional for me and said, "Tell me more about Addy, my doppelgänger."

She was genuinely interested, so I shared:

"I met Addy on the streets in the summer of 1994. She was with four men, all kitted out in military gear. I assume she was a medic but she was armed with an army gun, so maybe not.

From the way she spoke, like you, Addy was clearly American. I do not remember much about the other men as it has been a long time and they did not speak very much."

"What I remember most about Addy is that she did not belong there. She fit in with the men but I thought she should be home in America somewhere.

Earlier that day, I had cut my upper arm on some debris, maybe a mangled pipe in a house my friend and I searched. Addy saw the blood and wanted to see the wound.

So we left the street and ducked into a nearby building where Addy took care of me. She pulled out some bandages and salve from a pouch and doctored up my arm."

"She pulled out a few bottles of medicine and from one of those bottles, she gave me a single tablet."

"She told me my cut would get infected unless I found more antibiotics so I told her I would," I continued.

"The salve did the trick but left a scar that never went away. I never found any antibiotic but to this day, I am thankful for Addy."

I looked around then continued with the bad part as I thought this woman should know everything.

"Afterward, Addy's group moved on. Maybe an hour later, my friend and I heard automatic weapons fire in overly long bursts. It was unusual."

"A few hours later, we quietly went to where we heard the guns and there was Addy. She was sitting haphazardly against a building wall. Her army gun and rucksack were gone."

"We did not get close because we did not need to." I paused again, "Addy was the only one we saw in the street and there was nothing we could do so my friend and I moved on."

The woman gasped, "Did you bury her?"

I replied, "Back then, you did not do those things."

"I assume there was a skirmish with some inexperienced Croats." I added, "So had we ventured closer, we could have been shot on the street," I continued.

She asked, "Do you miss her? Do you miss Addy?"

I responded, "Addy should not have been there. She deserved a wonderful life in America." I knew what I said was awkward but it felt necessary to express my feelings.

"Yes, I feel sorry for her and who she could have been every time I see my Addy scar," I added. I raised my arm so this woman could see my faded but still visible scar. It brought a small smile to the corner of her lips.

"I thank you for listening to my story about Addy, the young woman I met long ago in a very bad place."

I turned and walked away as there was nothing more to tell her.

In my travels, I have seen the walls of despair too many times. Countless photographs of missing people are posted on those walls by relatives searching desperately for answers. They do not care if the answer is good or bad, they just want an answer, any answer. To this day, I know how Addy's story ended because I was there, but there is no family to give that answer.

If anything, I felt relieved in that restaurant that day just by telling Addy's story to someone, even if it was just a stranger. If I ever see a stranger who looks like Addy again, I will do the same thing and ask, Addy deserves that from me. I do not know what brought her to Sarajevo but her relatives deserve to know she was kind to me. Even though I only knew Addy for the last hours of her life, I will always miss her.

Late November 1994, I met Mrs Knežević in one of the harshest conditions imaginable, within a half-bombed-out apartment building located in the eastern center of Sarajevo. The building housed fourteen people who were either weak or old. My friend and I were welcomed into their apartment where food was scarce. To join them for the winter, we agreed to venture into the dangerous streets in search of food.

Although the bombings were a distant memory for much of Sarajevo, this part of the city remained under constant threat from snipers, both Croat and Serbian paramilitary units. The Serbian units posed little danger to us but the constant threat of sniper fire was very real.

The residents stayed together in a central area that was originally two apartments with walls purposefully punched through for warmth and protection. We spent our days and nights there, and modesty became less important as we grew closer. Everyone knew each other intimately in those harsh conditions.

Mrs K stood out among them. She was quiet but when she spoke, her words were harsh yet polite. Despite her sternness, everyone gravitated towards her, finding solace in her presence. Around Mrs K, everyone had a belief that everything would be fine when the war ended. She was maybe 70 years old so she was at least a teenager during World War II. Her resilience was undeniable.

Food and wood were both extremely scarce. One night, Mrs K ordered Dragan and me to go with her upstairs. We followed her into what remained of her apartment which was a mess of debris that once was her home. She pointed to the corner where heavy rugs covered something large. Mrs K uttered just one word "fuel," then she left us.

We stayed behind, uncovering the rugs to find an old, well-used piano. The residents did not say a single word as we broke down the piano and carried pieces down to the central area and piled it up next to the makeshift stove. From their facial expressions, they knew exactly what we were doing. After all, we only knew Mrs K and the other residents for a short time. The residents of that apartment building likely had known each other for decades.

For the next two days, everyone huddled around the warmth provided by Mrs K's old piano. She remained stoic but quietly cried as she watched the fire consume her beloved piano. The tears were silent and subtle, barely noticeable unless you looked at her closely. For two full days, each time I glanced at her, there were glassy eyes and wet cheeks as she stared at the makeshift stove. Mrs K was an utterly broken woman.

I often think of what happened to Mrs K. Did she survive the war? Was her cherished piano something she had owned for decades, something that perhaps she taught her children and grandchildren to play? I will never know but I do understand true sorrow. Mrs K showed me true sorrow like no other person possibly could.

In February 1995, as we settled into life with Mrs. K and the other residents in their bombed-out apartment building, my experiences began to transform me in ways I never anticipated. One particular snapshot from that time stands out for obvious reasons but you must first know that I feel no guilt or remorse, nor do I seek praise or fame. In those times, such actions were simply expected of you. For people who were not soldiers, these things just happened, and it happened to me.

Each day, Dragan and I brought food back for the elderly residents, distributing it fairly among them. On a particularly cold morning, we stumbled upon nearly a case of canned pears. However, there was not enough to go around. Dragan and I and maybe two elderly men did without.

A fit man in his thirties, who had been observing us from a distance, approached our group and took a can of pears from an elderly woman. The residents did not protest out of fear.

Dragan started to get up to confront this thief but I put my hand on his knee and told him that I would take care of it. I knew the stranger was likely going to run and that Dragan would try to chase him and hurt himself. If the thief did not run, I wanted to shield him from what would happen.

I stood up and walked to the thief, who did not try to run or even made any movement at all. He just defiantly stood there. I calmly pulled out my pistol from my coat pocket and shot him once in the chest. He died instantly. Everyone stood in silence as they processed the events. Soon afterwards, an elderly gentleman retrieved the can of pears beside the man’s body and returned it to the woman. She whispered "thank you" to the man. She turned her head and whispered the same to me. The residents resumed their meal of pears in peace.

Everyone around me seemed normal with my action, as though I just changed a tire on a car in front of them. At that point, I felt normal, like everyone else. The war had dragged on for so long that everyone had become numb to these kinds of things, even those who were not soldiers.

I walked over and sat down with Dragan and resumed our conversation. When our conversation was over, I looked at the dead man and told him that we should take care of the body or the rats would. That was the only time anyone brought up what happened that day.

Shielding Dragan from this action was the smart play, it was the only play. Killing someone over a can of fruit might seem heartless to outsiders, but in that moment, it was a necessity and the burden was solely mine.

1995 was a year of change. Peace treaties come and go. Military powers come and go. People like me come and go.

In March 1995, Dragan, my best friend in the whole world was murdered.

He stood right beside me when he fell. The sniper was either a Croat or maybe from the UN but the sniper was not a Serb, that much I know. From where we were standing, the sniper had plenty of time to choose between us. He purposely chose to shoot Dragan between the shoulder blades. The sniper could have quickly shot both of us but he did not take a second shot. Dragan was shot purely out of spite during an alleged UN ceasefire agreement.

Seeing him on the ground, moments ago full of life now lifeless was truly devastating. I felt utterly lost and did not know if I wanted to live or die without my best friend. Numbness washed over me as I sat there next to him, in clear sight of the sniper and perhaps others. I think, like me, they did not care. About an hour later, the numbness left and was replaced by anger.

I was anger with the West, angry with the Croats, angry with the Muslims, and angry with my own people. I was not shot nor did anyone come to my aid because no one cared. My dreams of saving Yugoslavia died along with my best friend. Why? Because no one cared anymore, it was over for me.

I returned to the apartment building with the same somber look on my face as Mrs. K. Unlike her, however, I was not just broken, I was furious. It was time for me to go and leave the residents behind. In time, I left my homeland behind as well.

When the first McDonald's fast food restaurant came to Belgrade in the late 1980s, most people were happy because it meant real change for us. For me, I considered the McDonald yellow arches a symbol where I foolishly assumed that the rest of the world now considered us somehow grown up, maybe our country would not be considered equal but maybe the world would think better of us from what we once were. My feeling of hope did not last very long as we were fighting each other only a few short years later.

When our civil war waned, I left my homeland, never to return. The town where I grew up already belonged to someone else by then, and every person I knew was either displaced, missing, or dead. I knew where my father was, but my father and I were not talking. As with many men of his generation, forgiveness did not come easily for him, and he felt I had abandoned him when I left to help others with Dragan. As with many men of my generation, my father's word is law. I hope one day he forgives me.

No home to ever go back to was the easy way to decide to leave, but there was more. I left my homeland because of my haunting memory of my best friend. A part of it was that Dragan died while talking to me, but worse was that I did not have a single drop of blood on me from the shot. I even sat next to him for maybe an hour and did not touch him because I did not want his blood on me. What kind of friend does that?

Also, I was truly alone, and no one seemed to care about anything. I went back to the apartment and looked at Mrs. K., but no one there seemed to care. All those things made my decision for me, to go far away from this.

I was certainly not a fan of America or any NATO country, but I had both German and English skills, so it was easier to quickly leave for Austria, Germany, Canada, Australia, or America. Those five countries would be possible but America seemed most tolerant of strangers of those equally bad choices. I decided on America, specifically the city of Nashville, which is in a state called Tennessee.

In 1997, I swallowed my honor and with distain, I came to America, the birthplace of McDonald's and to Nashville, the city of country music.

During the war, I witnessed and even participated in actions. I saw many acts of heroism by both civilians and soldiers alike. I never once saw an actual hero but I think that is true in any war. No one in history has ever left a war with clean hands, certainly not me. Everyone had dirty hands in that war. From what I saw, Serbs had dirty hands, Croats certainly had dirty hands and to no one’s surprise, some of the UN Peacekeepers were just as brutal as they were peaceful. NATO was just typical NATO.

I find myself forever changed by the war from so long ago, which has left me seeing the world differently than those around me. What I went through was horrific, but the war itself no longer bothers me quite as much now. The enemy does not bother me quite so much either. Their children even less so but still, enemy presence in my town is still problematic. I cannot tell myself that my town is simply occupied as it is not. I know it is forever theirs at this point. The best I can do is to deny the enemy legitimacy. I refuse to allow them or even my town's name to be acknowledged.

That is my compromise, the war is long over now. Anyone living in what was once Yugoslavia can have dinner with me here in America, but do not insult me or make light of what happened. After all, the enemy were just people, and as individuals, many of them deserve my pity. In the end, my side lost, but so did all sides.

What always bothers me at night is not having killed three soldiers I wish I could have. It is ironic that most people are troubled by those they have killed, while I am bothered by three I could not. I wish I could somehow track down three anonymous men from a long-forgotten war and brutally kill them, but that would not change what happened. Instead, I have to live with the pain and guilt of having watched three so-called peacekeepers commit a truly unspeakable act against a minor while her father and I helplessly watched and heard the horrible screams. I will not write more about this other than to say that I hate the UN more than any man on earth.

I am sometimes bothered but I am also haunted.

What haunts me is the people I met there, including Addy, the American woman who I doubt her family even knows that she is gone. Mrs K, the stern elderly woman who broke a smile when Dragan managed to scrounge up a hideous green pair of wool socks on one of our evening runs. Weeks later, Mrs K became a shell of a woman in front of everyone and I doubt she ever smiled again. Mrs Deroko, the residents found her confused and wandering on the streets. They took her in and she became part of their family forged through tragic hardship, their ‘porodica'. I killed a man so Mrs Deroko could eat. Of course, Dragan, my best friend who was with me until nearly the end. There are others before Sarajevo, like the dead man holding a picture frame in the middle of nowhere and little Sofifa who hugged Dragan or no real reason, human beings out there whom I often think about.

Perhaps the person who haunts me the most is myself, at least the man I was back then. Looking back at all that I wrote and all that I dare not write, I am haunted at times by who I was. Even today, under stress, I sometimes find myself becoming emotionally numb or feeling the opposite. I do not like that about me.

Decades ago, our long fought war shattered my country as well as my people. Today, it saddens me to know that America and even much of Europe has simply forgotten all about my country and what we tried to save from extinction. The world has moved on to cellphones and social media.

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