(Standard CV, shot lists and clip files available on request)
Background
I hadn't slept the entire trip. The slow, rumbling overnight train from Wien to Zagreb largely prevented that. Nerves did the rest. I was 25, fresh out of school and the Guard and I was going off to the real thing. I had studied military matters and international affairs my whole life, now it was time to live it. The same reasons that had sent me off to Ft. Leonard Wood were now pulling me into Zargeb's Glavni Kolodovor. You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk?
There was Sarajevo, Mostar, Keseljak, Tarcin, Tuzla, Brod, Orasje, Vinkovci, Zenica, Teslic, Doboj and a host of other places you'd never know.
When the West finally came and stopped the blood in 1996, Berserkistan and Bosnia Journal was born, when I dug into my past and remembered Ernie Pyle. When all was said and done, Berserkistan had 155,000 daily readers in 33 countries.
For the first winter and summer of America's involvement in the Balkans I wrote a column that took my readers into the everyday lives of the people and soldiers mixed up in this strange place. Leaving others to chase the latest statements and policy fluctuations, I lived with the little guy and spoke for him. It was an honor to do so.
Since then I've rolled out into whatever was going on, more or less, be it devastating hurricanes or a full blown foreign invasion.
For those who risk it, life has a flavor the sheltered never know.
Jim
My Dad. Pfc. Bill Bartlett. 2/7th Marines, Easy Company, Okinawa & China 1945-46. He instilled in me respect for Ernie Pyle and the common troops who fought WW2. He was a veterinarian in the horse cavalry back in 1940, but landed in the Marines when the Army turned to trucks and tanks.
A teenager during the Depression, married with kids in the 60s. His time was a bridging of two ages. He passed many things over that bridge and I will be forever grateful for it. He's gone now and I miss him very much.
"We bear witness. We speak for those who cannot speak for themselves." Martin Bell, BBC.
"September 11th changed everything." Every cop and fireman I have spoken to.
"Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much." Franklin Roosevelt
"Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means you've become a comfortable, trusted element in another person's life." Dr. Joyce Brothers.
"These militias, without the discipline or military code of the professional soldier, were frightening. It was among the rabble, the barbarians, that I longed for the Roman cohort, the drilled and organized mass that makes up professional armies." Chris Hedges, NYTs.
"They resented having to sacrifice years of their youth to a war they never made. They wanted to throw baseballs, not grenades, shoot a .22, not an M-1." Stephen Ambrose, Band of Brothers.