It’s June 27, 1991. Two days after Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia.
To the surprise of the rest of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Army (JNA), despite being the fourth-largest army in Europe at the time, is not really trying to prevent Slovenia’s secession. Something strange is happening.
The Slovenian Territorial Defense – a structure inherited from Yugoslavia’s doctrine of “Opštenarodne Odbrane” – Total People’s Defense – is surrounding JNA barracks and attacking the conscripts. The conscripts have been trying to withdraw into Croatian territory with their equipment.
They are just kids. In this ten-day war in Slovenia, many of them are Bosniaks. They especially feel and look like abandoned cannon fodder – no help is coming for them. The JNA officers who “lead” them have traditionally been Serbs, but during the war in Slovenia, they are suddenly nowhere to be seen.
In the video, we see a JNA conscript in a desperate situation. His unit crossed from Croatia into Slovenia, and now they are trying to withdraw. He is being interviewed by a reporter for Yutel, a Yugoslav television news program broadcast by TV Sarajevo:1
Reporter: So tell me, do you know what’s going on – who you’re fighting and all that?
Soldier: How would I know? All I know is that they’re shooting at us, nothing more.
Reporter: You don’t know who’s shooting?
Soldier: The Territorial Defense members. Who else?
Reporter: And do you know what this war – this battle – is being fought over?
Soldier: How would I know… From what I understand, they supposedly want to break away, and we supposedly won’t let them. The truth is, we just want to get back to the barracks, nothing more.
Reporter: What do you think happens next? What now? Do you keep fighting, or…
Soldier: What’s there to think about? I just want to stay alive. Goddammit… Look, mate, you’ve been in the army. You know how it is. You do what you’re told. And not one officer has died – it’s my friends who keep getting killed…
Reporter: How many of your friends have died today – do you know?
Soldier: Three today.
Reporter: Not a single officer?
Soldier: Not a single officer…
Reporter: …at a firing position?
Soldier: Man, I don’t even know where my head is. I’ve got no idea where I am, what day it is, how many… I don’t know anything. It’s a total madhouse.
Never in my life did I imagine that I would shoot at someone, or that someone would shoot at me. How can that be? It just can’t be. I really don’t understand any of this. I just pray to God that I stay alive, nothing more. Just to stay alive, I swear on my mother.
Reporter: How old are you?
Soldier: Nineteen…
Reporter: What’s your name?
Soldier: Bahrudin.
Reporter: How many soldiers have died?
Soldier Bahrudin: Four altogether, so far.
Reporter: Here, in this area?
Soldier Bahrudin: No – three here. Three died this morning. Two this morning, two. And then the third one, the one who was wounded – he died. He died! He did.
Reporter: What’s the situation like in the unit?
Soldier Bahrudin: What do I know… What can I tell you? We’re all praying to God for this to end so we can go back home. I don’t know… my mum, what she must be going through now. Just to tell my mum that I’m alive and well and that, God willing, I’ll come back. Nothing more. That’s it. Just that.
Reporter: We wish you the best of luck.
Soldier Bahrudin: Thank you! As I said, appeal through all the media – television, newspapers, radio, everything… Get this to calm down. Get them to pull us out. They say we don’t want to withdraw but we are literally dying here trying to get back to the barracks – for them to take us back, to let us go.
Reporter: And where are your barracks?
Soldier Bahrudin: In Karlovac ( Croatia ).
Soldier Bahrudin Kaletović was captured a few days later by the Slovenian Territorial Defence. He was eventually released and returned to Tuzla – his hometown in Bosnia – only to be mobilized again by the Yugoslav Army (JNA) for the war in Croatia.
During the war in Croatia, he served as a musician in a military band – one of his passions was playing the guitar. The entire unit was captured in Đakovo, Croatia, and released several months later.
When the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina began, Bahrudin volunteered for the Bosnian police and later joined the newly formed Bosnian Army – the Armija Republike Bosne i Hercegovine – and served as a radio operator until the end of the war.2
After the war, he kept playing the guitar, even doing some gigs in the capital of Croatia – Zagreb. He died in a car crash in 1998 on his way to Tuzla to meet a newborn son.3
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