Each death led to another. Once someone's father was killed, it needed to be avenged by the son or the brother or the friend... Funerals became welcome settings for these reprisals as therein walked or stood prime targets for snipers. Burials were forced into the night for safety. As a consequence of the fighting, bodies would lie on the ground for days. Sports stadiums soon became graveyards with the growth of the slaughter. Civilians that stayed behind frequently paid the price with their lives, but more often they had been the intended targets all along. The numbers of dead were staggering. Yet they were numbers rendered meaningless outside their use as propaganda. "We killed more than you" or "We didn't kill that many civilians" or "You are killing your own people to sway world opinion." Everyone said the same things. The only concrete reality was that people were being slaughtered. "We shall win..."

Blood and Honey : A Balkan War Journal at Amazon.com

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introduction

loyalty | reality | war | slaughter
fear and passion | ruin | displacement/replacement | response and failure

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