Slivovica Mason Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Gatekeeper Press

  3971 Hoover Rd. Suite 77

  Columbus, OH 43123-2839

  Copyright © 2015 by Clifton Bullock

  All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

  ISBN: 9781932549904

  eISBN: 9781932549911

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my wife Tasha, through all of the good and all of the bad.

  I love you.

  Mojave Views

  The crescent moon is low, smiling on the desert night.

  Silhouettes of mountains parade in the distance.

  The calm of night awaits.

  The oppression of the sun is gone for now, letting the earth cool.

  She is on my mind.

  Every grain of Mojave sand has an identity.

  God placed it in its place, so even when the wind blows it away it lands in Gods predetermined place.

  Destiny

  I am that grain and you are Gods destination, I will live in our love and parade it like the mountains.

  Dedication

  I would like to dedicate this novel to my father who served this nation for 20 years in the United States Air Force and to my mother who supported him during his journey but also raised 3 young men who became functional contributors to society. I love you Mom and Dad and every day I strive to make you proud.

  I would also like to dedicate this novel to the lives of Robert Smalls, Medgar Evers, and the men of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry who served during the 1917 Camp Logan riots and “those who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.”

  Yet denied those freedoms at home.

  Peace to your memories.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  Yugoslavia had been dissected by the UN’s allied forces. An authoritarian Slobodan had been defeated after he and his forces imposed a deadly war. The ethnic Albanians viewed President Clinton as a hero, a king, while Serbians viewed him as an American tyrant imposing his western views on their land in attempt to raze their history. Yugoslavia was one Slavic no more.

  “My fellow Americans, tonight, for the first time in 79 days, the skies over Yugoslavia are silent. The Serb army and police are withdrawing from Kosovo. The one million men, women and children driven from their land are preparing to return home. The demands of an outraged and united international community have been met.

  I can report to the American people that we have achieved a victory for a safer world, for our democratic values, and for a stronger America.

  Our pilots have returned to base. The airstrikes have been suspended. Aggression against an innocent people has been contained and is being turned back.

  When I ordered our armed forces into combat, we had three clear goals: to enable the Kosovar people, the victims of some of the most vicious atrocities in Europe since the Second World War, to return to their homes with safety and self-government; to require Serbian forces responsible for those atrocities to leave Kosovo; and to deploy an international security force, with NATO at its core, to protect all the people of that troubled land, Serbs and Albanians alike.

  Those goals will be achieved. Unnecessary conflict has been brought to a just and honorable conclusion.

  The result will be security and dignity for the people of Kosovo, achieved by an alliance that stood together in purpose and resolve, assisted by the diplomatic efforts of Russia.

  This victory brings a new hope that when a people are singled out for destruction because of their heritage and religious faith and we can do something about it, the world will not look the other way.

  I want to express my profound gratitude to the men and women of our armed forces and those of our allies. Day after day, night after night, they flew, risking their lives to attack their targets and to avoid civilian casualties when they were fired upon from populated areas.

  I ask every American to join me in saying to them, ‘Thank you. You’ve made us very proud.’

  I’m also grateful to the American people for standing against the awful ethnic cleansing, for sending generous assistance to the refugees and for opening your hearts and your homes to the innocent victims who came here.

  I want to speak with you for a few moments tonight about why we fought, what we achieved and what we have to do now to advance the peace and, together with the people of the Balkans, forge a future of freedom, progress and harmony.

  We should remember that the violence we responded to in Kosovo was the culmination of a 10-year campaign by Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, to exploit ethnic and religious difference in order to impose his will on the lines of the former Yugoslavia.

  That’s what he tried to do in Croatia and Bosnia and now in Kosovo. The world saw the terrifying consequences: five hundred villages burned; men of all ages separated from their loved ones to be shot and buried in mass graves; women raped; children made to watch their parents die; a whole people forced to abandon in hours communities their families had spent generations building.

  For these atrocities, Mr. Milosevic and his top aides have been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

  I will never forget the Kosovar refugees I recently met. Some of them could barely talk about what they had been through. All they had left was hope that the world would not turn its back.

  When our diplomatic efforts to avert this horror were rebuffed, and the violence mounted, we and our allies chose to act. Mr. Milosevic continued to do terrible things to the people of Kosovo. But we were determined to turn him back. Our firmness finally has brought an end to a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing.

  And we acted early enough to reverse it, to enable the Kosovars to go home. When they do, they will be safe. They will be able to reopen their schools, speak their language, practice their religion, choose their leaders and shape their destiny.

  There will be no more days of foraging for food in the cold mountains and forests. No more nights of hiding in cellars, wondering if the next day will bring death or deliverance. They will know that Mr. Milosevic’s army and paramilitary forces will be gone, his 10 years of repression, finished.

  NATO has achieved this success as a united alliance, ably led by Secretary General Solana and General Clark. Nineteen democracies came together and stayed together through the stiffest military challenge in NATO’s 50-year history.

  We also preserved our critically important partnership with Russia. Thanks to President Yeltsin, who opposed our military effort, but supported diplomacy to end the conflict on terms that met our conditions. I’m grateful to Russian envoy Chernomyrdin and Finnish President Ahtisaari for their work, and to Vice President Gore for the key role he played in putting their partnership together.

  Now, I hope Russian troops will join us in the force that will keep the
peace in Kosovo, just as they have in Bosnia.

  Finally, we have averted the wider war this conflict might well have sparked. The countries of Southeastern Europe backed the NATO campaign, helped the refugees, and showed the world there is more compassion than cruelty in this troubled region. This victory makes it all the more likely that they will choose a future of democracy, fair treatment of minorities, and peace.

  Now, we’re entering a new phase — building that peace — and there are formidable challenges.

  First, we must be sure the Serbian authorities meet their commitments. We are prepared to resume our military campaign, should they fail to do so.

  Next, we must get the Kosovar refugees home safely. Minefields will have to be cleared. Homes destroyed by Serb forces will have to be rebuilt. Homeless people in need of food and medicine will have to get them. The fate of the missing will have to be determined. The Kosovar Liberation Army will have to demilitarize as it has agreed to do. And we in the peacekeeping force will have to ensure that Kosovo is a safe place to live for all its citizens, ethnic Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians.

  For these things to happen, security must be established. To that end, some 50,000 troops from almost 30 countries will deploy to Kosovo. Our European allies will provide the vast majority of them. America will contribute about 7,000.

  We are grateful that during NATO’s air campaign, we did not lose a single serviceman in combat. But this next phase also will be dangerous. Bitter memories will still be fresh, and there may well be casualties.

  So we have made sure that the force going into Kosovo will have NATO command and control and rules of engagement set by NATO. It will have the means and the mandate to protect itself while doing its job.

  In the meantime, the United Nations will organize a civilian administration while preparing the Kosovars to govern and police themselves. As local institutions take hold, NATO will be able to turn over increasing responsibility to them and draw down its forces.

  Our third challenge will be to put in place a plan for lasting peace and stability in Kosovo and through all the Balkans. For that to happen, the European Union and the United States must plan for tomorrow, not just today.

  We must help to give the democracies of Southeastern Europe a path to a prosperous shared future, a unifying magnet more powerful than the pull of hatred and destruction that has threatened to tear them apart.

  Our European partners must provide most of the resources for this effort, but it is in America’s interest to do our part as well.

  A final challenge will be to encourage Serbia to join its neighbors in this historic journey, to a peaceful democratic united Europe.

  I want to say a few words to the Serbian people tonight. I know that you too have suffered in Mr. Milosevic’s war. You should know that your leaders could have kept Kosovo as a part of your country without driving a single Kosovar family from its home, without killing a single adult or child, without inviting a single NATO bomb to fall on your country.

  You endured 79 days of bombing, not to keep Kosovo a province of Serbia, but simply because Mr. Milosevic was determined to eliminate Kosovar Albanians from Kosovo, dead or alive.

  As long as he remains in power, as long as your nation is ruled by an indicted war criminal, we will provide no support for the reconstruction of Serbia. But we are ready to provide humanitarian aid, and to help to build a better future for Serbia too, when its government represents tolerance and freedom, not repression and terror.

  My fellow Americans, all these challenges are substantial, but they are far preferable to the challenges of war and continued instability in Europe. We have sent a message of determination and hope to all the world. Think of all the millions of innocent people who died in this bloody century because democracies reacted too late to evil and aggression.

  Because of our resolve, the 20th century is ending, not with helpless indignation, but with a hopeful affirmation of human dignity and human rights for the 21st century. In a world too divided by fear among people of different racial, ethnic and religious groups, we have given confidence to the friends of freedom and pause to those who would exploit human difference for inhuman purposes.

  America still faces great challenges in this world, but we look forward to meeting them. So tonight I ask you to be proud of your country and very proud of the men and women who serve it in uniform. For in Kosovo we did the right thing. We did it the right way. And we will finish the job.

  Good night and may God bless our wonderful United States of America," said the president of the United States of America.

  The air campaign is over, but the war had just begun. The Serbians have agreed to turn with their tails between their legs and run, blemishing the history of a country whose past is as blemished by murder, corruption and a homosexual foundation. The campaign to liberate Kosovo had been won. The region could put down their guns. The international police have arrested the world’s current evil entity without ties to the oil rich sands of Arabia. The one Slavic land will now be presented to the world with historic border lines at least until new lines are identified.

  Mason awoke from his repeated dream. Cold from sweat cooled his warm body. The night was full of nightmares. The limited sleep left the underneath of his eyes the ability to carry its share of baggage. True, the war was over, but the war within seemed to never end. That amongst others was the reason he was released from duty, and he was now free. No longer bound by the laws of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.

  He sat up along the side of the bed and looked across the room to his self-made memorial. He erected it in the memory of those who were murdered. At times he still heard the screams of the innocent. Sometimes he would close his eyes and still see the blood that flowed from the Serbian soldiers that surrendered their position under the rules of engagement but ultimately involuntarily and ultimately unwillingly surrendered life as well.

  Mason spoke nothing because he was alone, and there was no one else there. The voices he heard in his head didn’t require a response. He removed the cold from his eyes and wiped the tears that came when he thought about the gruesomeness of the war. He was war-torn. The term “war-torn” usually relates to a region after battle, but any marine or soldier will tell that for the boots that humped the ground, he and the region became one in the same. Nothing had been the same again after what he saw in Kosovo some years ago.

  "Get up, Marine. You have to let it go! You have a deadline to meet," Mason barked to himself finally snapping away from the memory of massacre and war.

  The Philadelphia winter outside was cold. The grey skies made it hard to wake, but for a veteran ex-marine diagnosed with PTSD, it made for a bigger challenge. He lived in his Penn Landing loft near the marina but worked downtown as a journalist for a local, liberal marketed newspaper where he wrote on assignment to provide insight to the world. It was his only job after leaving the Corps, but it was also what he did during his enlistment.

  In Kosovo he wrote about what he saw as well. He was a Marine first, translator second and third he also chronicled the events as a journalist. The Marine Corps ordered this duty because of his exceptional aptitude, and he proved to be the right one for the job. He was rare and could do rare things because he was not like other Marines by being quiet and reticent. The reason for this was that he was ridiculed by strangers and friends alike his entire life because of his speech impediment.

  Mason didn’t even like phones. He would rather write letters or send emails to communicate. "Words that are written can only be misinterpreted not misread" was something that one particular Master Gunnery Sargent always told him.

  He turned on the lamp light next to the bed to start his morning routine. When he did, the room came alive. Nothing in the room was out of place. That would have caused him unnecessary discomfort. Everything had to be in a specific place because to Mason and his obsessive compulsion, his apartment was the same as the large of the world. Everything had a place and order. The maho
gany wood within the loft correlated with the exposed brick gave him a cold cave-like feel but the comfortable feeling of home. Each throw rug was placed with precision, and every framed picture appeared to be drawn on the wall. Every plant was gently dusted, leaving only the green that God gave them. Closets were manicured with every suit arranged by color and every shirt the same. Neckties were paired with matching color patterned dressed shirts and his chest of drawers was organized the same way.

  Everything within his control was controlled because anything out of place provided room for things to go wrong.

  “Please Sir... Please don’t. I’m just a soldier like you. Please. I beg of you," and then the sound of execution rang before silence returned. Mason shook his head, but he could not shake the memory permanently imbedded. His team of devil dogs contributed to the same massacres against Serbians that the Serbian military was known to distribute over the entire region.

  “Please Sir... Please don’t. I’m just a soldier like you. Please. I beg of you," then the man was shot dead. Once with a purpose behind his head and another on the side for good measure.

  "Fuck you. You Serbian prick! I don’t give two shits if you beg."

  Mason tried to translate that surrender, but his delivery was so impaired trying to save the man’s life, he could not utter the words fast enough. All the man wanted was to live, so he could see his wife again, but he was ignored for multiple reasons.

  Walking into the bathroom, Mason turned the shower on; the steam immediately stimulated his nostrils. He lit a cigarette that he stored in one of the vanity’s drawers. He always started his day with a cigarette before a shower because he needed to calm his nerves before the shower cleansed his body. Plus the cigarette slowly made the world that he knew so well not so grim. He wiped the condensation from the mirror and looked at his reflection, he was not the man he used to be, but he was still not a man he knew too well. With nightmares attacking him while he slept at night and daydreams of better days few and far between, he knew that it was only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before the ghosts that he dreamt about from the war would finally come for him.