If they had known better, the women would have sat nearby, or at the
bar, which would have put them across from the only exit to the lobby,
and away from the huge plate glass windows that paralleled a major
thoroughfare. By thinking we‘d be more interested in hitting on them than
helping them, we knew this was their first day in their first war: no one in
the bar had ever experienced the kind of butchery and random cruelties of
this war, which tickled our collective fancy to the nth degree on this night
in particular…
Early that morning, troops had sealed the road leading into a village
to conduct a house-to-house search for weapons. The media were not
allowed in until it was safe, meaning there would be no witnesses should
they find weapons, or even not. We paced around our cars on the outskirts
of town, all except one enterprising crew who crept in through the bushes.
From hiding, they taped a young mother frantically calling for her young
sons to get out of the way of the scurrying soldiers.
Well aware that the civilian population derisively called soldiers
chicos, behind their backs, the soldiers interpreted her calls as a flagrant
insult. Two of them held her as she hysterically explained herself, while a
third cut off one of her breasts. They walked away laughing, as her
children raced to her side to watch her die.
Realizing the significance of what they had captured on tape, the crew
decided to get away, and sort out what to do with the footage later on. A
soldier spotted their retreat, and called after them.
When the crew had not been approached to give up the footage by
dinnertime, we realized the army didn‘t know who specifically had the
footage, and that the Little General would be reminding us that anything
detrimental to his army's image was dangerous to have.
At 19:55hrs his spies left the bar. This was the cue for everyone to
leave, or at the least stand behind the large commercial refrigerators
behind the bar area.
Leblanc and I abandoned our chess game at the exposed corner of the
bar, and with drinks in hand we joined an AP photographer and an ABC
camera crew sitting on the floor in front of the refrigerators.
The Swedes were entertained by our strange game, possibly thinking
that we were clowning for their attention when the sniper's shot crashed
through the glass at the stroke of curfew, 20:00hrs, as had happened every
other time the General wished to make a point.
Instantly terrified, the ladies scrambled the full length of the room on
all fours, as we adjusted our watches to official time.
"What a hoot!" I told Bonnie, who was staring as if I had a booger
hanging out of my nose.
