(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?
Fairly clueless about what exactly I was supposed to do and equipped with a pair of pawn shop Cannons, I apprehensively looked out the car window we pulled in. "Bubbah, we're here," I said to my friend Russ, who for unknown reasons had decided to accompany me on this little adventure. Half expecting to be mobbed by war panicked people or greeted by deserted streets, we gathered our gear and stepped onto the platform.
I soon discovered that 1. The war was a little further down the road, in Bosnia by then, and 2. If you were going to be a war correspondent, this was the place to learn. Over the next few years, blurred to memory in many ways, I was privileged to be part of a sort of rat pack of quasi freelancers and resident full time hacks. Wade Goddard, Darko Bandic, Hervoi, Georgi, Kurt, Greg, Corrine, Anthony, Wayne, Sasha, Martin, Kate, Mike and a host of others became both friends and mentors. It was exciting and painful, exhausting and joyous.
There was Sarajevo, Mostar, Keseljak, Tarcin, Tuzla, Brod, Orasje, Vinkovci, Zenica, Teslic, Doboj and a host of other places you'd never know. These places and years carved out a place in my soul, my very fabric that will remain with me forever. The Balkans get into your blood, bad.
They also produced a pretty fair shooter and writer, especially when the West finally came and stopped the blood in 1996. That was when 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 worked, wrote, loved and lost. The life of a little guy. I've supped with everyone from Haitian warehouse workers and villagers in Tibet to the British Royal Marines and Bosnian militia. Privileged to share their worlds for a while. Grateful to carry them in my heart.
The world got a little crazier a couple years or so ago. The frontlines are no longer defined by hills, ridges and rivers. We find ourselves in a place most have never contemplated, where the old lines and boundaries have been redrawn by a foe that kills you because you were born, wherever and whenever he gets the chance.
It's a quiet conflict, largely an unseen one. Cloak and dagger shit you'll never hear about. But make no mistake, it's here and it's real and every day, average working folks get up and go out their door to do a job that has gotten a whole lot more complex.
Jim Bartlett
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.