I served as a United Nations peacekeeper in Visoko, Bosnia from October, 1993 to April, 1994. My job was in administration, but as anyone in the military will tell you, you are a soldier first and a tradesman second. For me, that meant army stuff came before the paperwork so if they needed extra hands to man the sentry bunkers that surrounded our camp, for example, I could be pulled from my job for guard duty. Continue reading “Travel Shorts – Visoko, Bosnia”
Category: My Posts
This is the name of this category until I figure out a better one.
Travel Shorts – The Grand Canyon
I’ve often heard people say the Grand Canyon is just a big hole in the ground.
But man, what a hole!
In May, 2011, I took a tour that went from Denver to Las Vegas and went through what I would say is some of the most amazing scenery in the world. I mean, who knew that southern Utah and the surrounding area could be so spectacular? We visited park after park – Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Lake Powell, Capitol Reef, Zion, Bryce and of course, the Grand Canyon. Continue reading “Travel Shorts – The Grand Canyon”
Travel Shorts – Beijing, China
For many people, one of the joys of travelling is tasting the food in other countries. Unfortunately, I’m not a very adventurous person when it comes to trying certain foods.
For example, I don’t like fish.
Yes. I’m a Newfoundlander and I don’t like fish. If it swims, crawls or frolics in the water, I don’t eat it. As well, I don’t like lamb, goose, pheasant or any wild game.
And I don’t like duck. Continue reading “Travel Shorts – Beijing, China”
Travel Shorts: Saint Petersburg, Russia
While I’m working on getting my travel pages up, I thought I’d tease with a few humorous anecdotes from my travels.
Today is Saint Petersburg, Russia.
I visited Saint Petersburg in June, 2010, having just missed all the craziness that resulted from the eruption of Bob, the Icelandic volcano. The train tour ran from Copenhagen to Moscow via Stockholm, Helsinki and Saint Petersburg. Continue reading “Travel Shorts: Saint Petersburg, Russia”
Why I wrote Braco
When I started to write Braco, a lot of people were interested in where I came up with the idea for the book. It’s a personal story that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell, but the response has been so positive, I decided to include it in my readings.
Srebrenica is a small Bosniak town located close to the Serbian border about eighty kilometres east of Sarajevo. Before the war, the town had a population of six thousand with 60% identifying themselves as Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak and 30% as Bosnian Serb. (Today, the population is 95% Bosnian Serb).
When the war broke out in 1992, the town was quickly surrounded by the Bosnian Serb army and the Bosniak population in the town swelled to over 50,000. With little aid making its way through the Serb lines, a humanitarian crisis developed. Thousands lived under blankets in the streets in sub-zero temperatures. People killed each other over food. Disease was rampant, and through the winter of 92-93, the Serb army continued to shell the town from the surrounding hills. It was only a matter of time before this caught the attention of the world press. Continue reading “Why I wrote Braco”
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