Posted on 08/17/2004 4:21:32 PM PDT by joan
Everything about Staff Sgt. Adin Salkanovic says soldier.
His clear, deliberate speech, close-cropped hair and serious demeanor give him an air of authority usually reserved for those with a lifetime of military experience, not five years of U.S. Army service.
Those five years don’t tell the whole story, though.
When he was only 14, Salkanovic spent a year in the Bosnian army, fighting Serbian forces that surrounded his hometown of Sarajevo for 3½ years between 1992 and 1995.
“I volunteered many times but because of my age they said, ‘no,’” said Salkanovic, 24, who now serves as a scout with Troop F, 9th Cavalry, in Baghdad. “But I kept volunteering, I was one of those guys who wanted to see some action.”
Finally, the army relented and Salkanovic became a soldier, first proving himself by working with radios or carrying ammunition. After a few months he moved to the front lines, which were less than 1½ miles from his home.
“It was World War I-style fighting, trench warfare,” he said. “There were a lot of mortar attacks, howitzers and tanks — a lot of armor got involved. Both sides took a lot of casualties from the minefields and snipers.”
After about a year of fighting, Salkanovic’s father was wounded in battle.
“I kind of quit after my dad was injured,” he said. “I had to take care of my family. I had volunteered in the first place and they understood that I could walk out at any time because of my age.”
Salkanovic was the middle of three children and the oldest son, so it fell on him to provide for the family. He ran the household for two years until the family emigrated to the United States in 1995 to get medical help for his sister, who had a severe case of scoliosis.
Salkanovic’s family settled in San Jose, Calif., and while his sister received medical treatment, he attended school.
“I was lost for three months,” he said. Neither he nor his siblings spoke English. “I would guess what they were saying from one or two words and piece it together. After three months we all kind of felt comfortable speaking English.”
Once his sister’s two surgeries were complete, Salkanovic’s family decided to move back to Sarajevo, then part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1997.
“I told my dad I wasn’t going to stay,” Salkanovic said. He returned to San Jose, working construction jobs until he finished high school.
“As soon as I got my high school diploma I joined the Army,” he said. “I thought I would enjoy it.”
He said the Army gave him no special consideration for his time as a child soldier. He still had to go through basic training.
And he found the U.S. Army quite different from the Bosnian army.
“As far as training, discipline and equipment … you can’t compare it,” he said. The Bosnian army “was a regular army, just lacking in uniformity. Every battalion had their own uniform and standards.”
In 2001, he was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, deploying twice to Kuwait right before and right after Sept. 11, 2001. When Troop F was created, Salkanovic joined the unit, which is now deployed to Camp Grey Wolf in the International Zone.
Salkanovic’s history as a child soldier followed him into the unit, but he doesn’t tell many war stories.
“He doesn’t talk about it unless you ask,” said Troop F 1st Sgt. Kirby Carter. “Guys who’ve seen bad stuff don’t talk about it. If they talk about it, they’ve usually had to embellish it.”
Carter said that Salkanovic doesn’t tell stories about combat, but shares his past combat experience in other ways.
“He’s a real good leader,” Carter said. “When he gets out of the gate, he flips a switch and he’s ready for combat.”
“He knows a lot,” said Pfc. Joseph Stark, who is part of his scout squad. “It helps. I’d rather go out with someone who’s been in combat before.”
Carter said that Salkanovic’s squad has seen some serious combat in its nearly six months in Iraq.
Shortly after its arrival, the squad fought through a 4½-mile long coordinated ambush in Abu Ghraib and manned the Baghdad International Airport perimeter when it came under attack, later clearing the buildings that had housed the enemy fighters.
“It just clicked over the first time we got engaged,” said Salkanovic about returning to combat. “It’s just like riding a bicycle.”
“Anyone who fought in a war at 14 will be more mature than your average young sergeant,” Carter said. “We got a lot of young NCOs who came as specialists or young sergeants and grew into real good staff sergeants and will be the future of the NCO corps.”
Salkanovic said he hopes to make the U.S. Army a career.
“I’ve picked a job I like, and it fits my capabilities and personality,” he said.
Shows that boys as young as 14 were fighting, and EAGERLY: “But I kept volunteering, I was one of those guys who wanted to see some action.” “It was World War I-style fighting, trench warfare,” he said. “There were a lot of mortar attacks, howitzers and tanks — a lot of armor got involved. Both sides took a lot of casualties from the minefields and snipers.”
So much for Serbs only going after unarmed civilians. And all Bosnian men being helpless POWs slaughtered. Are the minefield and battle deaths counted as people in "mass graves"?
After about a year of fighting, Salkanovic’s father was wounded in battle.
Battle injury and fighting for a year. Again, so much for Serbs only fighting unarmed civilians.
Color yourself clueless.
I guess the former German Wehrmacht Soldiers who joined the US armed forces and fought in Korea were in the same boat then according to you.
That whole part of the formerly civilized world is full of folks who just plain hate each other for any number of racial, political, religious, and other reasons. The religeous aspects of the whole thing are among the LEAST divisive of the forces involved.
I once heard a special forces soldier with experience there describe the environment as "hate you can taste". Until they ALL overcome that (Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Romas, Christians of various orthodox flavors, muslims, etc), the situation will continue to be an uneasy truce overseen by NATO, EU, UN, and us -- at least until we get an administration smart enough to pull us out of the Balkans all together and turn the stagnant situation over to the Europeans to solve or babysit indefinietly themselves.
Thanks again, Wes Clark & Bill Clinton for your brilliant plans to get us out of there by Christmas.
In other words, they were in the Army but could be wearing civilian clothing.
So no, there was no immunity which explains WHY both sides shot AT EVERYONE. Because, at one time or another, that person had OR WILL pick up a weapon and will try to kill you. Better get them now then later. ahem, pre-emptive strike is what it's called now.
So no, there was no immunity which explains WHY both sides shot AT EVERYONE. Because, at one time or another, that person had OR WILL pick up a weapon and will try to kill you. Better get them now then later. ahem, pre-emptive strike is what it's called now.
Out of all the years I've been reading and posting on this forum, I have never seen anybody so precisely and directly address such a very real and neglected aspect of many of the "civilian" casualties that happened in Bosnia so eloquently and with such an economy of words.
Of course Serbian "civilians" were killed for the same issues. The major difference is, the Serbs didn't/couldn't go running crying to Christiane Albright at CNN or whatever the hell her last name is. The Serbs understood the score and fought back.
The only Americans that cry about the "indiscriminate" nature of the Serbs' warfare are either people completely ignorant of the nature of Bosnia's combat theater or people that are receiving some sort of monetary compensation for climbing up on a soap box and thumping their cheasts. Their only goal is to get enough of the indifferent masses to cry them a little bitty river just wide enough keep their BS hidden agenda flowing down stream.
By this point, I'm indifferent to either of them. The Truth simply is not on their side and it's really not my concern anymore.
The study shrunk the oft repeated number of 250,000 dead to about 100,000 and it includes all three sides and military deaths too.
As for Vukovar, Tomislav Mercep and his goons started "arresting", torturing and killing Serbs in early May 1991. There are pictures of identified Serb, dead and floating in the Danube. I don't see any such of Croats.
Serbs claim thousands of Sarajevo Serbs were imprisoned illegally and put in torture/rape camps in the part of Sarajevo which the Muslims controlled. The Serbs did control some suburbs of Sarajevo, and the line of confrontation was near the middle of the city, not far from the Holiday Inn. The Muslims were launching attacks into the Serb held areas. Serbs were not simply in the mountains surrounding it, but they lived there and were being killed by Muslim snipers.
Bosnian Muslim army records reveal that Muslim paramilitaries were killing Serb civilians from the start:
The population of Serbs in Sarajevo is around 150,000 less than before the war, while the Muslims live there in greater numbers.
You are full of crap as are your stupid accusations. Vukovar was fought over for 3 months by the Serbs and Croats. They are equally to blame. The Croats slaughtered plenty of Serbs as they retreated from Vukovar once they knew they lost that battle. Please stop vommitting up garbage that you know nothing about.
There were about 600 men that were summary executed by Serb paramilitary forces around Srebrenica after Serb forces moved in to liberate the area. There were plenty more Muslim men civilians killed as they fled to Tuzla with the Bosnian Muslim military columns. That's not a war crime. If civilians choose to move within military columns, they're legitimate targets.
I'm not even going to acknowledge the rest of your rediculous made up numbers because if the obvious is made up crap by you, I'm pretty certain that the less than obvious is also nothing but garbage.
vooch: I've been following your analysis and discussions about Srebrenica from the beginning and the latest information I have states that your description is pretty much on the money. Within the next few weeks I hope to be able to post a comprehensive analysis of just what really happened.
More than 600 were executed by the VRS, but less than the 7,000 figure since many of those were killed during the running battles while the ABiH retreated.
I'll ping ya when I get my act together.
[I dunno if you saw the game or not, but North Dakota looked pathetic and intimidated by Denver. Maybe ND was just too tired from physically hammering the crap outta Minnesota(?)]
If this were so, then they should easily have the names and autopsy reports to prove this. There has been plenty of time (several years), effort, personnel, publicity, interest and money put into "proving" Srebrenica. That is why the burden of proof should rest so heavily on those who accuse - they have been given every opportunity to prove this, and should have it available for the public since they've made it a very public accusation and have used it so often to demonize Serbs and justify bombing and intervention.
LMAO! Should we use this same standard to judge the validity of Serb allegations? Joan, where are the 14,000 autopsy reports of dead Serbs from Croatia during Oluja? LOL
Thank you! you understand this. people usually say the bosnian muslims caused this all just because the serbs are christians like them.
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