Soldiers Sent Over Like Guinea Pigs

I have to say Yugoslavia was kind of like America’s Vietnam. We were sent over there almost like guinea pigs. There was, we were basically pushed into a situation where, under United Nations banner, Cyprus had been going on for years and years and years but nothing ever happened in Cyprus. We go over there, we’re dealing with people, of course, different cultures, different ideals, and it just made it... They learned a lot from this. Unfortunately, some of the things they didn’t learn in time, were how to basically cope with people’s illnesses, of course coming back from that. I mean like I said, the sights, the smells, the sounds, of war, of Yugoslavia, basically is still haunting people today and it makes it very, very tough. Back then they had no system to decompress the guys. They had no system to help them go through, you know their emotional anxiety. There’s guys, myself included, who have never ever, have never ever looked for help and I think that maybe it’s in due time of course. Other guys unfortunately, were too late for. What’s sad is that more people have taken their life since Yugoslavia than we lost when we were in Yugoslavia. Very, very sad.