My War Memoirs: Adrenaline and Ash (Chapter 5.)

 

The air itself hummed with a taut, electric tension. War, a word once confined to history books and grainy black-and-white footage, was now a visceral, inescapable reality. It was no longer a theoretical threat; it was a brutal, undeniable fact that settled heavy in the lungs and tightened every nerve. The time for diplomatic niceties, for talking with "gloves on" with the encroaching Serbian army JNA , had vanished. Now, only one path remained clear: we had to seize the barracks, we had to secure the weapons depot. Passive defense was a luxury we could no longer afford; it was costing us too dearly, measured in shattered windows and mounting fear.

The strategic importance of this offensive was paramount. Following the earlier triumph of conquering the JNA military facilities in the Slatina area on September 16, 1991, extensive and meticulous preparations had begun. The goal was to blockade the formidable “Jovan Ivo Marinković” barracks in Našice. This was not a sudden impulse, but the culmination of months of simmering defiance. Back in July 1991, with the establishment of the ZNG battalion for the former municipality of Našice—a vital component of the 107th ZNG brigade Valpovo—the initial groundwork for active defense had been laid. Threats from the barracks commander, Ranko Dragojević, who had chillingly vowed to "raze Našice to the ground," left no room for complacency.

The mission assigned to the ZNG Našice units was stark in its clarity and daunting in its scope. They were to prevent and disable any attempt by armored and mechanized JNA units to break out of the barracks into the city itself. They had to prevent Našice’s destruction and, critically, prevent enemy forces from linking up with potential areas of rebellion outside the city. This would deny the enemy the ability to blockade the region and carve out swift breakthrough corridors from the east. Throughout August and September 1991, intensive reconnaissance missions were undertaken. Every shadow, every vantage point around the barracks and the Grbavica military training ground, was scrutinized. This painstaking effort yielded invaluable intelligence: a comprehensive understanding of the JNA's arsenal, equipment, personnel, and their fortified positions. The stage was set for confrontation.

I will never forget that night. It began with an almost magnetic pull, a restless energy that pulsed through my seventeen-and-a-half-year-old veins. On the night of September 20th, pushing into the early hours of September 21st, 1991, I found myself drawn inexplicably towards the city center. A general alert was in effect, and a strict curfew meant the streets should have been deserted. But a profound sense of unease churned within me, battling an exhilarating excitement. The idea that Croatian troops had finally encircled the JNA barracks, that a true war action was imminent, consumed my every thought. I felt a thrilling connection to something monumental, something larger than myself. I wasn't the only one in the city yearning for this dangerous thrill.

The darkness was absolute, a thick, suffocating blanket that swallowed every streetlamp, every house light. Yet, here and there, the faint, defiant gleam of a lit cigarette cut through the gloom, like tiny, rebellious stars. I drifted towards the muffled murmur of voices emanating from around the city hotel. As I drew closer, the quiet hum resolved into hushed conversations. Police officers, soldiers in various uniforms, and a smattering of civilians stood gathered. Their voices were low, almost conspiratorial, as if acknowledging the illicit nature of their presence. A collective understanding hung in the air: if the enemy forces unleashed their fury from the barracks, this very hotel, this city center, would be their primary target. Yet, they remained, drawn by the same morbid curiosity or perhaps, a desperate need for shared vigilance.

It wasn't long before the first enemy shells ripped through the silence. A chilling, whistling crescendo, then a deafening roar. My mind, still grappling with the surreal, processed a single, incredulous thought: "Wait, this is really happening!" The sky above, moments before an inky canvas, flared with a ghastly, incandescent red as detonations echoed like monstrous thunderclaps throughout the city. The initial barrage struck with a horrifying precision: the church tower, its ancient stones now a target; the towering water tower, a beacon of the city’s presence; the police station; and finally, the very hotel we huddled near.

Panic erupted. The hushed crowd scattered, a flurry of dark figures dissolving into the night. Someone, a disembodied voice in the chaotic dark, shouted, urging us to the hotel basement, a designated safe shelter. But the primal instinct for self-preservation, for shelter, eluded me. I was too electrified, too morbidly fascinated by the spectacle of the shells falling, a deadly fireworks display. In my profound naivety, in my utterly idiotic teenage invincibility, I was completely unaware of the peril, blind to the swift, brutal finality that war could bring. I stood transfixed, leaning against the sturdy trunk of a thick tree in the heart of town, watching the horror unfold.

The shelling intensified. The impacts drew closer, each detonation rattling my bones, vibrating through the very ground beneath my feet. A raw, immense force, utterly alien and terrifying, pulsed through the concrete. Still, some deep, forgotten defense mechanism, a tiny spark of survival, flickered to life. Suddenly, an overwhelming urge seized me: run home. Grandfather was there, safe in the basement with his neighbors, their faces etched with anxiety but their bodies shielded. The path to my house, normally a brief, familiar stroll, transformed into an endlessly long, agonizing gauntlet under this rain of steel. It was a deadly stretch. I had to pass the burning church tower, a skeletal finger of flame against the red sky, then the looming water tower, the city's highest and most visible point, and finally, descend the street leading to our house in the valley.

The thought of remaining in the hotel's relatively safe basement, barely fifty meters away, never truly registered. Instead, a perverse logic, fueled by a craving for adventure, propelled me towards a kilometer-long dash through the war-torn night. I secretly yearned for the cinematic thrill, imagining myself a quick, agile hero from a comic book or film, deftly dodging the explosions as they erupted all around me. This wasn't courage; it was pure, unadulterated thoughtless stupidity, a desperate, dangerous game.

Adrenaline and serotonin surged through my system, a potent, intoxicating cocktail. This physiological flood was both a consequence and a craving, a direct link to the emotional landscape of my lonely upbringing. Having been abandoned by my parents, left to be raised by a grandfather who, though loving, carried his own deeply rooted complexes about their choices, I carried a vast, aching emotional hole. My parents had built new lives, leaving me with him, to "manage as best I could." This abandonment had instilled in me a profound, youthful anxiety of being unloved, a gnawing emptiness that adrenaline and serotonin, those fleeting neurochemical highs, seemed to momentarily fill. They offered a deceptive sense of healing, a fleeting euphoria that masked the underlying pain and propelled me into increasingly dangerous escapades. This night was a prime example. I was addicted to stupid, thoughtless undertakings, allowing those surges of adrenaline and serotonin to lift me, to keep me suspended in a dazed state of euphoria and uniqueness for a precious few days. When that intoxicating high inevitably crashed, I would compulsively seek out new, even riskier activities to reignite it. I was damaged goods, a solitary figure adrift, locked in a constant, desperate search for the love that had been so rarely given. And when that love remained elusive, I would seek any means to feed myself with an emotion other than anxiety. In truth, I was chronically sad, a state that clung to me then and, to some extent, still does. Parental neglect had carved deep, indelible grooves in my life, and now, in the crucible of war, I found a perverse excuse to exploit the chaos for my own desperate emotional gain. I was playing a reckless game with life and death, utterly oblivious to the razor-thin line separating them.

After a few minutes of warped thought, I bolted. From the hotel, I sprinted across the road, across the empty parking lot, past the church whose tower still blazed, a fiery monument to the night's savagery. Shell detonations continued to rain down, an infernal symphony, yet I barely registered them. The noise was unbearable, a physical assault on my ears, but I ran like I had never run in my life, my legs pumping, my breath ragged. After passing the church, I wisely chose not to ascend the hill towards the water tower, knowing the ground around it was a maelstrom of fire and debris. Instead, I veered around the base of the hill, finding a marginally safer path. I paused briefly there, catching my breath, a strange, sick admiration for the unfolding horror gripping me. Pieces of concrete rained down, striking the ground with dull thuds, while windowpanes in neighboring buildings spiderwebbed and cracked under the sheer force of the detonations. Amidst the echoes of explosions and the continuous firing, glowing enemy tracer bullets tore through the sky, creating the fleeting, terrifying illusion of daylight. Flares periodically ignited, casting an eerie, theatrical glow over the scene.

About 200 meters away, from the city cemetery, the response of Croatian forces was visible. The rhythmic flashes of machine guns and automatic weapons fire punctuated the night, accompanied by distant shouts and the urgent roar of vehicles speeding down the road without lights. I knew that my immediate danger was solely from incoming shells. The enemy was not here, not on the streets; they were dug in, well-fortified within the barracks. Another powerful detonation ripped through the middle of the road, its concussive force shattering my morbid fascination with the chaos. It propelled me forward again. I ran down the street in a bizarre blend of mild joy, sheer euphoria, and a tremor of underlying fear. I even made strange, involuntary noises, guttural sounds escaping my throat, as the impact of each detonation, the raw pulsation, slammed into my chest and lungs, momentarily stealing my breath.

Soon, I was in front of my house. It sat in a small valley, a natural dip in the terrain, which offered a measure of protection; shells flew over, missing our street entirely. A genuine sense of safety washed over me, a brief respite from the madness. I watched the sky for a moment, still mesmerized by the flashing lights and booming sounds. Then, a voice, sharp with anxiety and relief, cut through the night: "Stupid, go inside! Why are you running around like a madman? Go inside!" It was my grandfather, his silhouette framed in the dim light of the basement entrance, his face a mask of worry. He had been waiting for me. At that time, I was seventeen and a half years old, impatiently counting the days until December 1991, when I would turn eighteen. There was a very real possibility that they would finally accept me into the Croatian Army. The current situation, the raw energy of battle, and the intoxicating thought of donning a uniform, of being commissioned, only fueled my already soaring adrenaline.