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

Sadly, throughout this period, we fought among ourselves for scraps of land, which eventually led to all-out civil war. At the beginning of our Yugoslav civil war, civilians like us went about their lives as best we could. If the fighting was close, it was bad, really 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 disintegrate for both soldiers and civilians alike. No place was spared from the raging war.

My snapshot stories are not about any war heroes or acts of bravery, they are about those caught in the middle who simply fought to survive. My snapshots are about the people I want remembered from this long-forgotten civil war.

It was strange but in 2010, I thought I saw Addy eating at a fast food restaurant in America. The young woman I saw certainly was not the Addy I met long ago in Sarajevo, but she looked identical to her.

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 passable English, I asked, "I am sorry for staring at you, but I have a question. 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, young 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 of 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. This encounter left me feeling sad knowing that even though she looked like Addy, this woman was no relation. I was relieved, however, just by telling Addy's story to someone, even if it was just a stranger. Even though I barely knew Addy, I miss her.

I met Mrs K 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 of 1994, we agreed to venture into the dangerous streets in search of food.

Despite the bombings being a distant memory for most 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 remained there day and night, and modesty became irrelevant as we grew close over time. 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 in mid-winter 1994. One night, Mrs K ordered my friend 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 my friend and I 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 tears 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 do not feel guilt or remorse nor am I looking for praise or fame. It was a different time back then and things like what I did were just expected of you. For people who were not soldiers, these things just happened, and it happened to me.

Each day, my friend 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. My friend and I and maybe two others did without.

A young man in his 30s, who had been watching 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.

My friend 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 not going to run and I wanted to shield my friend from what I knew was soon to happen.

I stood up and walked to the thief, who did not try to run or really 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 was normal like everyone else to it. 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 my friend and resumed our conversation. When our conversation was over, I looked at the dead man and told my friend that we should take care of the body or the rats would. That was the only time anyone brought up what happened that day.

I will never explain to anyone why my friend needed to be shielded from the action I knew was going to happen, only that it was important that I killed that man, not him.

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

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

He was right next to 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 the shot came from, the sniper had plenty of time to choose between us. He purposely chose to shoot him between the shoulder blades. The sniper could have shot both of us but he did not take a second shot. My friend was shot purely out of spite during an alleged UN ceasefire agreement.

Seeing my friend on the ground, moments ago full of life now lifeless like so many others we had seen before 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 for about an hour but soon anger took its place.

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 and moved to America, the land of McDonalds. McDonalds where there are countless packets of ketchup littering the tables, floors, and trashcans. Those packets of ketchup being trivialized in such a way really bothers me but in a way, maybe it is for the best as people today do not know what hardship is and I hope they never find out what true hardship ever is.

Today, I find myself left forever changed by that forgotten war so long ago. I do not see the world as others around me do and doubt I ever will again. Of course, what I went through was horrific but oddly, the war itself does not bother me quite so much now.

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 my friend 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. Of course, my friend, my best friend who was with me until nearly the end. There are others who I often think about as well.

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 truly haunted at times by who I was.

My motivation to write these snapshots was actually Patty, my American wife's idea. She wanted to know more about my friend who was with me during the war so I told her. She said it would be good for me to write about what I did and what I saw during the war. For many reasons, that will never happen but I did write these events so my friends are remembered in some way, remembered at least by me.

Most of what my friend and I saw was boring. We saw maybe three tanks up close during the entire war. We interacted with many soldiers but that was what you did back then when you try to save a country which could not save itself.

As for my best friend, his name was Dragan. He was a sad but good man with a kind heart. 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, and that is just how I would like to remember him.

I know that his wife passed away before I met him. It was a tragic loss for him, leaving no children and he had no other relatives. That made me his only family during the war, and Dragan was the only family I had then. We shared everything together and I did quite well since he was great at bartering and could convince people out of just about anything they had.

Dragan's death was painless but also pointless. I have seen countless dead bodies but I will always remember his the most. He should have been alive today, living next door to me with a new wife and a new family of his own.

My best friend, Dragan R. (1960-1995). He was a good man.

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