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Steve Gaunt was born in Leeds, England in 1957 and left home and school at age fifteen. A self-taught writer and administrator, he went on to publish his own journal of English politics and became a high-level manager of a British tour company. He has always been what's known as a people person.
Steve is not the type of person to take problems lying down. During his stint as a tour manager he dealt with all kinds of tourist-induced chaos that prepared him well for the upheaval in war-torn Croatia in late 1990.
During the war years, Steve Gaunt kept a diary which he dubbed War and Pivo -- pivo is the Croat word for beer. Gaunt spent most of those years in Eastern Slavonia where The people of that region adopted him as their own. He was awarded Croatian citizenship after the people of Vinkovci actively petitioned on his behalf. He is now working as a photo reporter for Glas Slavonije, and has earned a reputation of one of Croatia's best photojournalists.
War & Pivo is a time capsule that takes you back to the first unsettling days of the war in the Former Yugoslavia. Steve's entries capture the confusion of the period -- the thoughts and feelings of men becoming soldiers to take up arms. In 1991 no one could have predicted what the next five years would bring to the Balkans and that uncertainty is obvious in Gaunt's diary -- along with a feeling of dedication to what he, and his fellow soldiers, felt to be their duty to humanity.
The lads I had met seemed a nice group, consisting of a French paratrooper and three English lads called Ben, Carl and Ken. Ken was the only soldier out of the three and had spent many years in the Royal Artillery despite his youth. He was born into the army. As he put it himself, he is a `Squaddie Brat`.
We wandered down to the city center for a few beers then back up the hill to the camp. As we bedded down in what was the shooting gallery of the police college which was now our base, two English lads came in from the front line. One of them was George Paterson, who is a 17-year-old student and has been in the papers back home. They told us about current conditions in Vinkovci and Nustar, where they had just been.
They dropped off their weapons and we all went out for a drink. The other chap was called John and between the two of us, we drank the town dry. Luckily, we found someone to take us back to base. Once laid on my cot, I spotted a pile of 7.62 ammunition, which I liberated.
We practiced with the weapons until we could strip and assemble in less than thirty seconds with a blindfold on. A local girl called Monica turned up with the commander. After he satisfied his curiosity about us, Monica invited Randy and I to her house. We watched TV and chatted about inconsequential things until shelling locally forced us to return home.
Shortly afterwards, we moved to our new home in the east of town, in the village of Mala Bosna. As if to greet us, the house was machine-gunned which was interesting. Later on, Randy went outside for a piss and was nearly hit by a mortar shell. We didn't flinch as we thought it must be normal, but later we found out that they thought that we were lunatics. I went to bed at 7 pm to the sound of heavy gunfire.
I was on duty at noon and all was quiet, but when I finished, all sorts of heavy stuff came over. Back in our cellar, Randy and Ken were poring over maps and charts. They are planning to do something with our mortars. Ken came to me later and told me the armory was issuing weapons. I dashed round and selected an excellent Serbian AK47. I lent my Rumanian AK47 to Ivan, one of the Bulgarians. Another sad aspect of the war is the amount of abandoned pets everywhere you go. We have taken in a kitten. No doubt the sad plight of these animals would touch the hearts of the British, while they ignore the suffering of the people.
I was tempted to take a few shots at it but decided to let it pass. It scored a direct hit on a bronze statue outside the church. On duty with one of the new chaps at 6.00 pm. His name is Ian Thorburn and he is a deserter from the Irish Hussars. Tanks are his subject and he spent the evening trying to identify the various tank shells that were flying over our heads. Some cease-fire!
In the evening, I went with Thomas, Mark Weston and a Croat called Belagich, to the hospital canteen to meet Ljubica. She seemed pleased to see me and gave me a little Teddy bear, much to the amusement of the lads.
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Watching the war unfold in Croatia on TV, Steve felt complelled to take an activist role. So with no military experience at all, he packed himself off for the front as a volunteer soldier. It was the beginning of an odyssey through which he evolved into a seasoned soldier, a war invalid, and a professional photographer.
While I was waiting for them I learnt my first Croatian word. Pivo means beer. At 11 o'clock they returned but couldn't take me as their unit was about to go into action, so instead they took me to the headquarters of a local division. When I eventually made clear to the guard what my intentions were, they let me in. I almost immediately came across a group of English lads who were there for the same purpose. We soon found out that the organization was almost non-existent and security very lax. We walked on and off the base as we liked. The canteen is open 24 hours a day and is free, but we soon got fed up with endless sausages.
We leave tomorrow for the front. That afternoon, we went down to the central station to see if any volunteers had arrived on the trains from Munich or Paris. We met some militia from HOS, the unit formed by the Croatian Party of Rights. They gave me a grenade and I arranged to meet them to swap kit for grenades and ammunition. They are short of kit but have a large amount of ammo. We sorted out some gear to swap with them and met them at the Hotel Central. Picked up some more grenades and 7.62 ammo. We got a lift back to barracks from president Tudjman`s head of security.
NOVEMBER 26th 1991
DECEMBER 9th 1991
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