The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

"A Family Tradition for 128 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Wednesday, December 28 1994 - 5 > PORT PERRY STAR COMMUNITY HOME FOR CHISTMAS Young Canadian peackeeper returns from horrors of Bosnia By Jeff Mitchell Port Perry Star HOME for Christmas. No words could have sounded sweeter during the holiday season of 1994 for a young Canadian soldier and his Port Perry family. Kevin Zenglein, 23, arrived safe and sound in Port Dec. 15, and was last week looking forward to taking a month to relax and enjoy the compa- ny of family and friends after a two-month tour of the hell in the former Yugoslavia. There he and his colleagues with the Second Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery were part of a United Nations peacekeeping team that has tried, often in vain, to stop the bloodshed in an ethnic conflict that has horrified the world with its sheer brutality. During his tour in Bosnia Kevin, a graduate of Port Perry High School, came under fire four times, and emerged with memories that will be indelibly imprinted on his mind. And he has developed a sense of frustration that will be dif- ficult to shake, even though he is due to return to the war-torn region in the spring of 1996. "You've got to keep a clear head over there," he said during an interview a few days before Christmas at the home of his parents, George and Eleanor. "In some ways it's very frustrating because they could start shooting, and you wouldn't be able to tell where they were shoot- ing from. "They're bastards. The value of life is nothing there." THE ASSIGNMENT i Bosnia was an eye-opening experience for Kevin, who entered the military after graduat- § ing from high school four and a half years ago with a hankering for adventure. "Well, I got it," he said. : He has been based in Pettawawa, one of the country's major military installments near Ottawa, and as a member of Canada's famed blue beret UN peacekeepers found himself last year stationed for a stint in Cyprus. That's a peaceful situation compared to Bosnia, where daily acts of brutality committed by factions int- ent on eliminating one another have shocked | the world, and play heavily on the minds of ide- | alistic young men and women who are proud of the job they are undertaking. : It's disillusioning, he admits: "It's probably best (for the UN) to pull out of there," Kevin said. "They don't want peace. The Serbs want a port... They don't really hate the Muslims; it's just greed. It's greed that fuels that war. "They'll butcher everybody." _-- Kevin Zenglein of Port Perry spent the holidays with his THE STRAIN can be intense. family after a two month tour with UN peacekeeping forces Kevin originally went to Bosnia to :nstall in war torn Bosnia. The 23 year old soldier was looking for- armor plating on military vehicles, but also ward to a peaceful time with family and friends after witness- found his unit assigned to the extremely hazar- ing the ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia. dous task of escorting humanitarian aid convoys through the many "sniper alleys" that are an ugly part of the war in Yugoslavia. He has been shelled during these convoys, and was > He has also been a guard on the various observation he said: "These are the games they're playing; it's very peacekeepers used the time to look at newspapers and frustrating. "We had to wait until we thought they'd stopped shelling us and then make a run for it." magazines, and catch up on the precious mail from home. And a time to avoid the ugliness of the situation in which they found themselves. "You try to avoid talking about what's going on over there as best you can," said Kevin. HEARING HIS son relate these stories and following the Bosnian conflict closely in the media has led Kevin's father, George, to ques- tion the presence of international peacekeeping forces there. He shares his son's frustration; it's not fair to send the soldiers there to do their jobs -- keep the peace -- when tne country is in disarray and there really is no peace to be kept, he said. "The thing is, if they're there for peacekeeping reasons, which was their mandate, the area has to be secure from the type of sniper fire these fellows are facing," said George. "It has to be clear for them to do the job their mandate told them to do." He has found himself wondering if there are not certain parts of the world that are beyond the reach of the UN. "The UN, I don't think, can be the sole policing of all the problems that exist in the world today," George said. "There's so much unrest in the world today. People seem to want something, but they don't know what it is. How can you deal with it? what can you do?" THAT FRUSTRATION #8 confronted daily by Kevin's parents, who often find themselves waiting for word from their only son. Kevin tried to write or call as often as he could from Bosnia, but there was a spell in the last month or so when no contact was made for about three weeks. That was during the time peacekeepers were coming under fire, and the brutal war ground on with battling factions ignoring calls for an end to the conflict and threatened with air strikes. "It was pretty worrisome for both Eleanor and myself, not hearing what was going on," George said. "We could accept a fatality if we knew he was doing his job on an equal footing," he said. "But it weculd be a pretty bitter pill to swallow if he can't do his job on an equal footing. Kevin agrees that peacekeepers are hampered by a directive that dictates they can only return fire if fired upon; it means they must watch helplessly as the conflict continues and the casualties mount. "The main tning is we can't protect people over there because we can't protect ourselves," he said. George said the tension grew as the holidays approached: "The other thing, of course, was that we were never really sure if he would make it home for Christmas." KEVIN DID make it out of Bosnia, in time for Christmas. Just. He caught one of the last few flights back to Canad... posts set up by the UN, and found himself feeling the leaving Bosnia in mid-December and finally arriving in in the Canadian camp in Visoko that was shelled by tension of knowing that at all times, he and his col- Port Perry Dec. 15. leagues were targets for factions consumed by greed He will take time now to rest and enjoy friends and and bloodlust that has led them to commit unbeliev- family before reporting back in Pettawawa Jan. 15 able atrocities, like shelling school children at play and «| req]ly appreciate being home," said the youn 2 taking part in vicious "ethnic cleansing" exercises that cekeeper. "It's a good Christmas; a very good Christian have resulted in civilians being killed or ejected from up iy the homes where they have spent all their lives. lag to get out of there with my head on my It was three days on the line and then a day off; the WINTER SALES ~ Hi. Eff. Gas Furnaces ~ Serbs as soldiers slept. After that incident the Canadians took cover and spent the day in bunkers, waiting for the next rounds to fall. But the shelling was largely a tactic by Serbs to intimidate and undermine the peacekeepers. And the shelling of his convoy was largely the same, u DVANTAGE IR © CARE Authorized Dealer CONSUMERS GAS GAS FURNACE | CLEANING 0 Put it On Your > Gas Bill! Wo INSTA-FLAME ~ Central Air Units ~ TAAL Y . Think Smart Think Natural Gas SPECIAL ~ CALL FOR DETAILS > Gas Fireplaces ~~