All of those soldiers were killed holding open the fork. D.K was killed for the people and not for Martic nor Slobo, but died as an example of honor.
Few years later, the local Croatian rep wrote an unauthorized letter here recalling that fight. DK's Garde recieved a military funeral by the Croatians for their heroism. They gained their respect and others as well.
Martic was feeding the Serbian population the theory how Slobo would rescue them if attacked. In turn, the day-day readiness was non-existant. The VRS sent trooops in to slow the advance til they regrouped. Even Arkans boys raced in, but they deviated from their orders when the slaughter was becoming overkill. They turned-to Rescue Force by holding open roads, corridors and bridges so civilians can pass. They did so against orders for the most part.
People may say what they want about Arkan but if people want to believe the media hype about how "bad" he was, so be it.
He did alot of good for the Serbian Church and people. Bad had to occur for the good to be realized. Unfortunately, alot of the truth is suppressed about the Serbian Krajina being occupied and other events.
As Tropo and I have stated, Knin was pre-arranged to fall along with many other sectors of the RSK.
Truth to be told, when the pre-established lines were breached by the Federation forces, the VRS reversed those grounds and began doling out punishment to the muslims. The Croats stopped where they were supposed to. The muslims got greedy and were smacked down and being wacked good with Croatians providing arty for the advancing Serbs.
When the Serbs were assured by NATO (who were amazed the VRS were able to amount such a formidable counter-attack after the air attacks) the muslims were behaving. Then the Serbs began falling back to the lines pre-arranged.
? I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you elaborate? Do you mean the regular guys vs. the "political appointees"? The regular guys being the ones who fought so valiantly to protect their people and the political appointees being the goons who ran across the border with their DM the day before Oluja?
There were many individual units who fought not for the RSK Government, but for their peoples very lives.
Yes, I know there were groups of them protecting the civilians. And they were heroic and self-sacrificing.
All of those soldiers were killed holding open the fork
Fork? I'm not sure what you mean here. Yes, I can be dense sometimes (blush)! There was also a group at Turanj holding back HV until most of the civilian "refugees" had passed to the south and east, and they fought very hard.
the day-day readiness was non-existant
True. That's certainly what I saw.
They turned-to Rescue Force by holding open roads, corridors and bridges so civilians can pass.
We had credible reports that Arkanovci were seen actually carrying wounded civilians across the bridge over the Una at Dvor. One of my colleagues cracked, "Fancy that. Arkan the humanitarian." I've seen Arkan's dark work, though, in Eastern Slavonija. Real dark. Revenge on an ethnic Hungarian village.
Thank you very much, CPC, for your very helpful and informative post. I really do appreciate hearing the story from your side. And it confirms some things for me.
Do you know what happened at Brubno? Especially the bus. There was no one left to tell the tale, and it was, well, a scene I'll never forget. I'd just like to know what really happened there. I'm certain it was ABiH 5th Corps who did it.