FLAI<
SOF REPEATS SOVIET
PROPAGANDA?
In the "World SitRep" survey in the
January 1993 issue, I'm afraid you 've
unwittingly repeated communist
propaganda. You allege that in Estonia
600,000 Russians are stripped of their
citizenship . But many of these "ethnic
Russians" are part of the more than
100,000 Russian, formerly Soviet ,
troops still occupying the now
independent countries of Latvia,
Lithuania and Estonia.
What the Baltic States have said is
that Russians who have lived there
more than 10 years and have learned
the local language can apply for
citizenship. Those who have shown a
sincere desire to fit in are welcome;
those who have come merely as
exploiters and occupiers are not!
There's a big difference between this
policy and the policy that you describe
which smacks of ethnic discrimination.
Some readers may imagine that the
Cold War is over but Russian troops
continue to occupy the Baltic States.
And they continue to operate top secret
radar and tracking stations like the one
hidden at Skrunda in Latvia [pictured).
This particular station emits dangerous
electromagnetic fields and radiation
which have had negative effects on
local livestock and human health
conditions.
Veners Cinis
Toronto, Ontario
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12 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
MOSLEMS TO BLAME FOR
BALKAN MESS
Peter Douglas ("Along Bosnia's Ho
Chi Minh Trail," SOF Feb. '93) seems
to have great sympathy for the
Moslems in Bosnia. With Iranian-
backed fundamentalists pouring in
looking for martyrdom, I find it
unbelievable that the West - and
especially the U.S. - is supporting
such a regime.
The reason this dirty civil war began
in the first place was because the
Serbs, who make up almost 40% of
Bosnia's population, chose to fight
rather than be forced to live under a
Moslem government following the
stupidity of early recognition. During
the Gulf War, Bosnia's Moslems openly
supported Saddam Hussein and called
for the downfall of America. In the
Second World War, they sided with
Nazi Germany while Serbian chetnik
guerrillas fought on the Allied side killing
Nazis and communists.
Yet for some reason the West, led
by the United States, which in turn has
been pressured by the Arab world, has
turned on the Serbs and said simply,
shut up and accept your new Moslem
regime in Sarajevo. What a double
standard!
Mark Fitzgerald
Toronto, Ontario
Mr. Fitzgerald's bizarre interpretations
of both history and current events are
beyond argument. It is worthy to note
I I
' listen to what you say; you have won
I
'
that the subject of Peter Douglas'
article, Giles Pace, was motivated to
help the Mos/ems in Bosnia so they
would not be forced to rely on radical
fundamentalists, thereby further
complicating the Bosnian situation.
FLOWERS TO THE LIVING
As a simple matter of "giving flowers
to the living," I'd like to say a couple of
things about Bob Brown and his
magazine.
You know that many of our
countrymen tend to look on ''the Soldier
of Fortune crowd" either as a threat to
the nation's moral fiber or as some vile
group of assassins. My experience with
you and the magazine indicates just
the opposite is true. While I can't say I
agree with every editorial viewpoint or
article published in SOF, I can say with
total sincerity that you as a person and
the magazine as an institution have
contributed in innumerable ways to the
exposure of communism as the fraud
it has always been and to its world-
wide collapse.
In some ways, it might be said that
the so-called "Reagan Doctrine" was
scripted in the pages of SOF long
before Reagan became president. The
assistance rendered to anti-communist
guerrilla groups by his administration
had been long advocated (and
practiced) by you personally and by
your magazine. Truly, America owes
you both a debt of gratitude for carrying
on the good fight until victory. How
ironic it is that having been, in a certain
sense, a bellwether of the West's
victory over communism, some despise
you all the more.
As for me, I will choose my friend
by the enemies he makes, and you,
Bob, have made all the right enemies.
I am proud to call you friend and I
personally know that there are many
thousands who, while they don't know
you personally, feel the same way. And
while you may have lost the recent
court case, you have won something
far more important in the eyes of those
who actually read what you publish and
their gratitude and respect.
So, be proud of what "those other
guys" may call you; after all, unlike
them , you can claim direct involvement
in the triumphs of freedom - Angola,
Salvador, Afghanistan, Nicaragua ,
Mozambique and on and on. It can be
said that when Lady Freedom walked
into newly liberated nations , she
MAY 93
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SOF's Crash Course
For Bosnian Volunteers
by Bob Jordan
"I Taught Croatian Soldiers
How To Shoot Serbs At 1,000 Meters,"
blared the headline on the Zagreb-based
Globus newspaper. The quote, attributed
to Soldier Of Fortune's Editor/Publisher
Robert K. Brown, wasn't entirely accurate
but was based on fact - sniper training
was a key part of SOF' s training syllabus
during our recent trip to Bosnia.
War in what used to be the country of
' Yugoslavia has been raging since June
1991 . At that time the republics of Slovenia
and Croatia declared their independence
and the Serbian-dominated central gov-
ernment responded with military force to
keep them part of Yugoslavia. Slovenia
saw fight ing first, but the central
government's lines of communication were
too long, so the campaign to beat the
Slovenes into submission failed in a
matter of weeks.
Then the government in Belgrade (once
Yugoslavia's capital, and now Serbia's)
turned its attention to Croatia, where fierce
fighting went on for a year until the United
Nations sent 10,000 "peacekeepers" to
stand between warring Croats and Serbs.
Fighting in Croatia at present is only spo-
radic, but because Serbian forces occupy
some 30% of Croatia, which the Croats
rightly want back, at some point in the
near future that part of the war will re-
sume. Stalled in Croatia, the Belgrade gov-
ernment decided that the republic of Bosnia
would be the next target for incorporation
into its planned "Greater Serbia."
Bosnia has (or had, prior to the Serbs '
"ethnic cleansing") a population mix of
about 43% Moslem, 20% Catholic Croat
and 30% Orthodox Serbian. Using the pre-
46 SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
I I I ''
text of "protecting our fellow Serbs from
persecution" to justify their actions, Serbia
sent its military strength and huge amounts
of munitions and arms to Bosnia.
Serbia's army and air force combined
with local Serbian militias have so far
annexed more than two-thirds of Bosnia.
The remainder of the country is still re-
sisting. And, like the people of Croatia,
non-Serbian Bosnians want their country
back and will fight to get it. Having par-
ticipated briefly in the Croatian fight (see
"Combat Zone Croatia," SOF Feb . ' 92), I
was pleased to be invited to Tomislavgrad,
a small city west of Sarajevo, as part of a
Soldier Of Fortune train ing team .
The Serb Stops Here
Headquarters for the King Tomislav
Brigade is about seven miles behind its
forward positions. Those positions form
part of a defensive line which has stopped
Serbian forces from completing their drive
to the Adriatic Sea, thereby splitting em-
battled Bosnia in two, which would bring
" Greater Serbia" one step closer to
realization .
As part of an SOF team (see "SOF
Team Trains The King's Cadre" and "Clas-
sic Arms, Croatian Courage," SOF April
' 93), former U.S. Army Colonel Mike Peck
and I were asked to conduct training for
selected personnel who were temporarily
in reserve. A four-tour Vietnam vet with
extensive experience in Special Forces,
including Delta Force, Mike had also done
a tour as an instructor at Ranger School
and was on the ground in Operation Ur-
gent Fury (Grenada). He is, of course,
well-qualified and up-to-date, and we were
able to provide useful instruction in sev-
eral subjects asked for by the brigade com-
mander - sniping, leadership techn iques,
patrolling and establishment of defensive
positions.
As was the case in my previous visit to
Croatia, I found our students to be every-
thing an instructor could want. Intelligent,
physically fit and enthusiastic, they were
motivated by a strong desire to defend
their homes, or to recapture houses now
occupied by the Serbian army. Some of
them had fought from their bedroom win-
dows before being driven out by enemy
tanks. Nearly all were locally recruited
militia, supplemented by a small leaven-
ing of soldiers with experience in the
former Yugoslav army or service in the
French Foreign Legion. Eager to learn,
they soaked up everything we could teach
them and always got it right the first time.
Sniping, when used against unarmed
civilians or conducted from the bell tower
of a university campus, is nothing less
than murder. Properly used in the military
context, however, sniping is a very effi-
cient method of killing one 's most dan-
gerous opponents before they get a chance
to kill you, or disrupting enemy opera-
tions and morale for only the cost of a few
well-placed bullets.
When Mike and I arrived at his office,
Colonel Zeljko Glasnovic, commander of
the King Tomislav Brigade, gave us 20
soldiers armed with a variety of scoped
rifles and asked us to make them into
snipers in three days. The colonel knew
that a normal sniping course is months
long, but he didn't have months to spare.
Mike and I gulped, asked for the rest of
MAY 93

the day to prepare lesson plans and agreed
to start teaching early the next morning.
At 0800, after a breakfast of good
bread, sausage and coffee strong enough
to crack the cup it came in, we met our
course in a classroom at Brigade HQ. They
were mostly 18 to 20 years old with a
couple of NCO-types of about 35. Newly
recruited, not one of them raised his hand
when asked if anyone had killed an enemy
soldier, but they all claimed to have done
a good deal of deer, rabbit and fowl hunt-
ing in more peaceful times, and thus were
"pretty good" shots.
Checking their weapons, Mike and I
found quite a variety of rifles, many brand-
new, and all in fine condition. There were
several Steyr SSGs (my personal choice
for anti -personnel sniping), a dozen
Yugoslav M-76 sniping rifles (copies of
the Soviet Dragunov), an FN FAL, a Win-
chester .30-30 lever action and other ci-
vil ian hunting rifles . I was especially
pleased to see a Barrett Light-50, a devas-
tating weapon when properly employed.
Our students' rifles all had telescopic
sights, again varying in type and quality.
There were some Swarovskis on the SSGs,
some Tascos, a Bushnell and some
Yugoslav-made scopes on the M-76s, all
with different reticules and adjustment
drums, promising to make zeroing an in-
teresting exercise.
After assessing our student's experi-
ence, abilities and equipment, Mike and I
started the course with several hours' lec-
ture and discussion. First, we spoke of
moral and ethical aspects of shooting un-
suspecting people from a safe distance,
stressing that soldiers never intentionally
kill civilians, but that when used in his
proper role, a single sniper can have the
impact of dozens of average riflemen . This
led to the characteristics an individual
needs to be an effective sniper, such as
maturity, determination and the ability to
work away from one's fellow troops.
We then talked about the need for first-
class fieldcraft - camouflage, conceal-
ment, tactical movement and use of ter-
MAY 93
rain for stalking, selection of
hides and alternative positions,
along with many other aspects
of security that are a sniper's
main defense. Entering and leav-
ing friendly lines, use of artil-
lery support, coordination and
operation in conjunction with
patrols, command and control,
ballistics and ammo selection, choice of a
team partner, equipment and differences
in rural and urban environments were other
subjects covered before we went to the
range that afternoon.
Our "pretty good shots" turned out
needing a lot of practice in basic marks-
manship, so we spent the rest of the first
day and most of the next just firing groups
at l 00 meters, then adjusting scopes once
a shooter had a group tight enough to
correct. We found a few of the scope
mounts needed attention, and that the
M-76 was generally a good deal less accu-
rate than other rifles in use, but eventually
we had nearly all our students getting con-
sistent hits on torso -sized targets at 500
meters. Happy enough with this standard,
given the short time available, we spent
our final day with a few simple exercises
and a review of important subjects.
Thirty-seven platoon and company
commanders made up our next class, anx-
ious to learn what we could teach them
about troop-leading techniques. In a long
day of classroom and terrain model work,
Mike and I taught them the sequence of
planning and executing operations, includ-
ing analysis of all relevant factors : how to
backward-plan available time, prepare and
issue orders, conduct rehea rsals, use sup-
port artillery, armor and troops.
Like the students of our previous class,
these officers were hungry for any scrap
of knowledge we could give them and we
all felt that weeks could have been well-
spent together. Unfortunately, though , the
war required them to return to their units
the next day.
Colonel Glasnovic gave us a break from
teaching when he invited us to tour posi-
Volunteer sniper trainees pose with
target. SOPs training team had but a
few days to turn enthusiastic "pretty
good" shots into snipers.
lions forming his brigade front, so we
donned combat harnesses, then collected
a PPSh 41 and an FN FAL for personal
defense and jumped in to his jeep early the
next morning. We visited his men ' s snow-
covered bunkers in Ardennes-like forests,
on rocky hilltop antitank strong points
overlooking bare windswept plains, and in
mud-filled trenches facing similar Serbian
ones, reminiscent of World War I. Morale
was good, supplies were adequate and the
An eclectic assortment of volunteers
and their rifles in sniper training.
Among the ordnance these men
brought along were Steyr SSGs, Yugo
M·76s (Dragunov redes ign) - even a
Winchester .30·30 lever action
deer rifle.
King Tomislav Brigade's use of terrain
made it clear why the Serbian offensive
had ground to a halt in this area. As of this
writing, the Serbians were still
being held .
Several more days of instruction fol-
lowed for us, this time for NCOs who
needed to know about patrolling. Again
our men learned quickly and again we
wished for weeks instead of days. We had
other commitments, though, and had to
leave; maybe next time.
War in the Balkans will continue as
long as the Serbian people and govern-
ment believe they can get away with their
aggression. While individual Serbs, Croats
and Moslems battle each other over centu-
ries-old grievances now reinforced by re-
cent atrocities, their politicians callously
manipulate public opinion to keep
them fighting.
The European Economic Community,
the United Nations, the United States and
Russia (the Serbs' main supporter) must
convince all sides that negotiations are
better than combat. Endless arguments over
irrelevant "no-fly zones" and patently un-
workable peace proposals do nothing but
waste time while people continue
being killed.
Irishman Bob Jordan has fought wars
on four continents and is a frequent con-
tributor to SOF. ~
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 47