In June of 1995, I moved from the country of my birth (Canada), to the country of my parents, Croatia. The reason for this move was for my induction into the Croatian army.
Alot of people told me that I was crazy, but most people don't realize how much we Croatians love our homeland, even those that were not born there. Our country is truly beautiful, and so are the people who live there. I truly thought that I would be moving there for good, but instead, just served my year in the army.
After spending a month and a half in Medimurje, the northern part of Croatia, I finally said goodbye to my family and friends, and on Aug 3, 1995, was officially a soldier in the Croatian army. I was sent to Koprivnice, a small town in Croatia, with my fellow Medimurci, and Zagorci. On the bus there, I got to make my first friend, Zeljko Jovanovic. This guy, from Kotoriba, was a metalhead like me, and was a really nice guy who helped me to meet more friends, and get over my shyness (I was the only one from outside of Croatia), and our love of heavy metal music made us friends off the bat.
Me(on the left) and my friend Zeljko.
The first few days were okay, we didn't do very much hard work, except for the food, which I couldn't get used to. And the washrooms, you wouldn't believe em unless you saw them. We weren't allowed into the city for two weeks, until we had our swearing ceremony, where we swore that we would do everything as the commanders taught us. On that first monday, life really got rough. We were awakened at 4:30 am every morning, with a "nice stroll" through 10km of mud and dirt. Remember that scene from Police Academy 1 (where they're all running and out of shape?), well that's what we looked like that first few days. During this time, we were also given our first weapons.
I got a Russian made AK-47, which wasn't a really bad gun, but it was new, and for some reason, it kept on getting rusted, and no matter how much gun oil I used in the morning, the thing would be rusted by the afternoon, and then my Seargent would give me hell for why I didn't clean my gun.
Me in the hills around Koprivnice.
Anyways, the two weeks just dragged....and finally, the saturday that we were all waiting for finally happened. We had our swearing in ceremony, and finally were allowed to go home for the weekend. Our platoon was the best, so our lieutenant gave us an extra two days to enjoy the time off.
Our army base the day of our swearing in ceremony
Well I got home, and took a long needed shower, and then proceeded to hit Cakovec, the city near my village. I met some of my friends from my platoon there, and after a short glass of wine at my uncle's continued on to some of the disco's in the city. I can't really recall what went on, I was too intoxicated, and to tell you the truth, I don't really recall the whole weekend. Well, on that tuesday, after a weekend of drinking and enjoying myself, I had to go back to the army. It wasn't bad, I got to go back to Medimurje every weekend. The best part of my first two month's had to be our tabor, which means camping out. It was great. Even though we only were there for a couple of days, it really showed what being in the army was all about.
We got to shoot, play war, etc., and even hit a local store and filled up our waterbottles with beer and moonshine for the night at the campfire. We had a blast, and I was seriously saddened when it was time to go back to the army base. But below, you will find a few of the pics that were taken on our tabor.
Me(on the left) and my friend Zeljko.
Me in the hills around Koprivnice.
