Normally I would have been upset at receiving a phone call at 10am on a Saturday morning, (my sleep in day,) but the annoyance of the call was soon forgotten, once the perpetrator of the call spoke;
"LJ, sorry for calling so early, but I figured you wouldn't mind it. Slobodon Milosevic is dead."
I was immediately overcome with mixed emotions.
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I had worked as an Albanian/English linguist with the US Army and Marines in Kosova, from the first day the NATO bombing campaign ended in June of 1999, for just over 6 months.
Like it was yesterday, I remember flying in from Camp Able Sentry in Macedonia, on a Marine helicopter, strategically hugging the mountain sides, as we headed to our makeshift base in the mountains of southern Kosova. I remember the drive from this mountain base, through village after village burned down, spray painted with Serbian insignia of their ultra-conservative, ultra-nationalistic warrior sect, the Chetnicks.
I remember seeing mixed villages, where Albanians and Serbians once lived together. You would see one house in rubble, decimated from mortar fire that it took, while the house no more than 20ft away, stood unharmed, with a Serbian flag waving atop it.
As we approached the city of Gjilan in south eastern Kosova, along the road side, men, women and children gave the two finger victory/peace sign to us as we passed. In Kosova, the US Military were greeted as liberators, with flowers and candy. And that is no exaggeration.
When stopping to talk to the locals Albanians that had remained, there was a look in their eyes that said so much. Their faces smiled with joy and relief that the American's had come to save them from the ethnic cleansing Slobodon Milosevic had ordered against them. At the same time, their eyes showed loss and pain. For too long and for too many, Milosevic's crimes had taken their toll on the Albanians in Kosova. They wanted to be happy, but the loss of life, liberty, and land had wore their spirits thin.
In the days, weeks, and months following KFOR's (NATO's name for Forces in Kosova,) you saw a rebirth within the community, within the country. Freedom and democracy had prevailed, and the security of the Albanians within their fatherland, was helping move past and heal the pains of the massacres and atrocities experienced by the Kosovar Albanians. But never would/will the Albanians of Kosova ever forget the crimes committed against them.
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The death of the Butcher of the Balkans came too soon. The terror and pain that Slobodon Milosevic inflicted upon Albanians, Bosnians, and others in former Yugoslavia, really could not have been properly punished with death. If he would have lived a hundred more years, knowing that each day that passed, he was imprisoned, having lost his freedom and rights, just as he had done to so many himself; it would have not been long enough.
But his death does bring closure to a dark part of modern day history. It also should bring light to the threats we face here in the United States, when the Executive starts moving further and further to the brink of dictatorship, and then wholly into it.
Tens of thousands died in Kosova for their freedoms. A quarter of a million Bosnians died for their freedoms too. We really don't need to look all the way back to Hitler's Germany to learn lessons as to how absolute power corrupts absolutely.
May we here in a America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, one day too, aspire and desire to be free again. May we one day again, dream the American Dream. May we commemorate the sacrifices of previous generations, all the way back to our founders, but reclaiming our freedoms, our liberty, and our democracy.
I wish I could remember to whom to attribute the following paraphrased statement about democracy, but it goes something like this;
"When you have something good, something that is truly desired by others; you don't need to force it upon people. By living it truly and by setting an example for others, they will do whatever they can to have it, including stealing it from you."
This is true of democracy. The way America showed Democracy to the world over the 20th century is the reason so many countries are either democratic or aspire to be so.
What kind of example are we setting for the world now?