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Twisted Avatar | 01-04-2010 01:30 PM
The Bosnian Experience............. http://www.survivalblog.com/2009/12/..._experien.html The Bosnian Experience Mr. Rawles, I want to thank you for having this site and presenting people with opportunity two obtain useful information that could save their lives one day. I have been dedicated reader of your blogs for some time and now think that is my time to contribute some information instead of just reading it. I have survived through collapse of former Yugoslavia and the years of war that followed after. I will try to cover as much of different topics that pertain to every day survival. No matter on how much the person is prepared, it might not be enough. I was born and raised on farm in Western Bosnia and we always had enough food and supplies on the farm to survive at least one year without any contact with the outside world. We grew our own wheat and corn and always had enough flour for at least three years. We also had cows, chickens and sheep for dairy products, meat and eggs. The sugar and salt would be purchased in the 50 pound equivalent bags. Besides the motor vehicles we also had horses that could be used for farm work and transportation. We even made our own brandy and had at least three years supply of it. During the peaceful times, before the collapse, we only had one firearm, Yugo M57 Tokarev pistol, with about 50 rounds of ammo, but after the things started to go down the hill, are family arsenal improved. We added a Russian PPSH 41 [submachinegun], a Yugo M48 Mauser [bolt action rifle] and a Yugo SKS [semiautomatic] rifle to our arsenal, but we only had few hundred rounds for the each weapon. A lot of times it was really easy to obtain weapons but getting the decent amount of ammo was more challenging. My father was in the reserve status of Yugoslavian Army so he was issued a M48 Mauser but only got 40 rounds of ammunition with it. When the things started to go bad, we were under impression that we would be okay; since we are on the farm and that we can just live there until everything was over. Boy, where we wrong. When the fighting broke out, the villages, small towns and farms were systematically cleared of people, looted and destroyed. You had a better chance of surviving if you lived in an apartment in the big city of if you lived in the farm that was further away from the front lines. It does not matter how good your house is built, it will not sustain few direct hits from the T-72 tank. Also, it does not matter how well you are armed, unless you have numbers on your side (number of armed people), and you dig in and try to protect your property, you will be over-run and destroyed. Yugoslavia had a fairly strict gun laws before the collapse, basically, you could own pistols, shotguns and bolt guns but after the collapse nearly everyone was equipped with selective fire battle rifles. I would advise that you don�t keep everything that you have in one location. I was forced to leave my house and take off with just my backpack and weapon. If you can, keep a bug out bag [cached] a few miles away from your house so that you could go to it, if you are forced to abandon your residence. Be prepared to not return to your home for years and try to have another place to live in another part of the country or even some other country. I was not able to go back to my home until years later. Stash as much ammo in different locations as you can. I did not have enough ammo in the first place and whatever I had was used or traded within first month of me leaving my home. Ammo was good trading currency and could get you a meal at any time. Local paper currency was basically worthless but if you had foreign currency, then you were in better shape. At that time German Mark was most popular currency in Europe and could get you anything in former Yugoslavia during the war. The Gold and Silver were good to have but it was harder to find someone that would accept gold and silver as form of payment . People that lived in big towns also had their share of problems. If they lived in apartment buildings, they were dependent on central heat and when the things started to go bad, there was no more fuel to heat these apartments. Not that many people had wood burning stoves and the winters in Eastern Europe can get really cold. I would advise that if you don�t have a wood burning stove, to get one and store it somewhere until you need it. You will need it not just for heat but also for cooking. The people that had stoves or were able to obtain them or make them then had another problem, getting the firewood. If you live inside of city that is surrounded and you can�t just go outside of city and cut some trees down, obtaining firewood can become your daily battle for survival. Burning your furniture, books, park benches, trees from the parks and every other tree that you can find will be normal. I would advise that if you are going to have a stove either store at least one winter supply of firewood (if you have a place to store it at) or have a plan where you get that firewood when you need it. Another issue that people from the cities faced was the shortage of water. Some people ended up digging wells in the courtyard of their apartment buildings but majority of people who tried this were unsuccessful since they were digging where there was not water or old city utilities were under the places where they tried to dig. Most of the people were forced to make daily runs to water points and bringing the water back to their families. Water points were favorite targets for snipers. Having extra water jugs will help you minimize your visits to water points. Since this is my first post, I will not make it too long and will stop here until the next time. - A Bosnian Survivor

Twisted Avatar | 01-04-2010 01:37 PM
Re: The Bosnian Experience............. Part 2.......... The next thing that I would like to cover is mode of transportation. When the society collapses more likely you will have to leave your home. Having a 4x4 vehicle that is equipped with everything that you need to survive would be everyone�s choice for travel but that sometimes might not be possible. In the broken society there is no law. Everyone and everybody is a target. Traveling in the vehicle on the road or off the road is extremely risky. First, vehicles make noise and everyone can hear you. Second, vehicles are big and they can be seen. It is just way too hard to travel in the vehicle and not to be spotted. In a vehicle you will be ambushed by groups and the individuals. One of the reasons for this is that there will not be enough gas and just you traveling in the vehicle will make everybody think that you are a rich target and you will be attacked. If you plan on traveling long distances, you will be ambushed and if you might survive one or two ambushes but you will not be able to survive every ambush that you might encounter. Like I mentioned before, when the society collapses, there are no laws and everyone makes their own laws any way they like it. In Bosnia there were armed individuals and groups that would shoot at the vehicles just for fun to see how quick they can stop it and trust me, two M53s (Yugo version of German MG-42 light machineguns) supported with several AKs will stop most of the civilian vehicles very quickly. Traveling in the vehicle would be easiest way, but this might be putting yours and your family lives in danger but when the times comes, every individuals will have to decide for themselves on how they will travel and they will not have a lot of time to make this decision, so plan ahead. My preferred method to travel was on horseback. The horse is quiet and it can go across terrain that not even 4x4 can. The horses also don�t require you to carry around jugs of spare gasoline since their food grows all around you. I would also recommend traveling on the horse back in the area that is covered with anti-personnel mines (minefields). Believe it or not, horses are extremely smart animals and sometimes they know where not to step. If your horse does step on a mine, you have a lot more chance to survive since his body will create some buffer between you and the blast and might give you another chance. The horse will also hear way before you any movement or any signs of life and if you know your horse, you will be able to read these early warning signals. Since I am talking about animals, next thing that I would like to cover is food that they provide. While I was on the move, I was never long enough in one spot to grow a garden, but catching an animal for meal was another story. Good part of Bosnia is mountainous and wooded area, and there was some wild life to hunt at beginning but later on, this has changed and it was harder and harder to find wild life. First thing that I would like to recommend is to have some kind of small caliber weapon for taking small game. Shooting a small rabbit with 8 mm Mauser does not leave you a lot of meat to eat. Also learn to set traps for small animals. In certain parts you could hunt with your firearms but then you might be somewhere where you can�t shoot since you don�t know where exactly you are or what is around you. Another thing that you should learn is how to field dress an animal. I understand that a lot of people hunt and know how to do this but there are also people who have never hunted or seen an animal be field dressed and just seeing this might make them sick. Another reason for knowing how to field dress and animal is that you want to get maximum amount of food from it. You might not get to many chances to take an animal and when you do use everything from it that can be used. Clothing The next thing that I want to cover is clothing that you wear. Most of survival oriented people, including myself, would wear some kind of military camouflage uniforms for several good reasons. Some of the reasons are durability, most of the military uniforms are quality made and will outlast a lot of civilian clothing. Pockets to store things since uniforms have a lot of them in the right places. Blending in with natural backgrounds, since military uniforms are not made out of colors that stick out. Recognition of other members of your group by having all of the group members wearing same camouflage pattern. If you will wear military type of uniform, make sure that you have some civilian clothing with you as well. If you are captured by military, militia, armed renegades or anyone else, you will be treated as a combatant just because of the military clothing that you are wearing. Even if you are not armed it won�t help you out. I have personally witnessed a young man pay dearly just because he was wearing old Yugoslavian Army boots. The mentality of you enemy might be that you are a combatant if you show any interested in military equipment. So, if you are wearing military clothing be ready to lose it quickly and change in to something else. If you are captured in the middle of nowhere with any kind of uniform on and no other clothes to change in to, that could be bad for your health. Another thing that I want to cover is one of the important pieces of your equipment, and that is flashlight. I had a low quality flashlight (I though it was good because there was nothing better on the market) and it died on me the first time it got wet. In the USA there is unlimited number of good quality flashlights so if you are going to have a flashlight make sure that you have a good one. And have backup one as well. Flashlight is a must have item and the cheap one will not last you long. This is true with any other equipment. I understand that times are hard and money is the issue for a lot of people but buying quality equipment will probably save you money in the long run since this equipment will usually last for the long time. One thing that I really wish I had was night vision device. Most people know the area that they live in and can move around that area in the middle of night without any problems, but when you end up in the different part of the country, and you can�t orient your self and is middle of the night, this can become challenging. Night vision would be tremendous help. Although I previously mentioned bartering with ammunition, one other thing that I would like to mention to have for trading is cigarettes. I did not even think about this before things went bad but I was lucky to have a grandmother who smoked two packs a day and she always had several cartons of cigarettes stored. The smokers become so desperate that they will give you almost anything for a cigarette. I have see people in prison and refugee camps become so desperate that they would pick every leaf of all the trees in the yards, dried them, wrap them in the old news paper and smoke them. A lot of people got sick of this since they were smoking everything they could find. The one topic that I would like to cover last and I think that this is one of the most important topics is what happens if you are captured prisoner. Humans are some of the worst animals and will commit atrocities that are far worst that any wild beast could do. And the worst part about this is that humans will do it for no good reason and that they will find humor in at while they are torturing someone. Animals kill because they are in fear, protecting their families or hunt for food but we, humans, are the ones that will do it for no good reason. I was captured as a prisoner and have promised to my self that if I survive I will never become a prisoner in a society with no laws again. After the war I have moved to USA and since then have served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans both as a soldier with elite unit of US Army and as a private contractor and during my deployments I did not know if I will survive the deployments but I did know that I will never again be captured. This is something that every individual needs to think about. If society collapses and you are captured, you will be at the mercy of your captors, who might not have any mercy. There wont be laws and rights to protect you and nobody will be there that you can call for help or complain to. I hope that I was able to provide at least some useful information for the readers and gave them some ideas. Keep your powder dry. - The Bosnian Survivor

Floyd | 01-04-2010 01:51 PM
Re: The Bosnian Experience............. I want moore. (Oliver Twist voice)

Twisted Avatar | 01-04-2010 02:14 PM
Re: The Bosnian Experience............. Do the best you can. With what you have. Came back the answer :ok: T

brewer | 01-04-2010 10:22 PM
Re: The Bosnian Experience............. Thanks TA, Could someone please refresh my memory and give a synopsis about the Bosnian war? We've got slow mo dialup out here in the sticks...so a wikipedia or google search is a PITA. Thanks for the info.

Russkie | 01-04-2010 10:51 PM
Re: The Bosnian Experience............. The comment on trading ammo goes against common wisdom on this and other boards. "Bullets and cigarettes are money" Great post. Always good to hear from those who've actually been through it. Having a self-sufficient farm won't do you much good if everything breaks down. Neither will gold and silver. It seems to me that a self-sufficient farm is best for those who want to get away from conventional society, and live a more clean, honest life, NOT to survive the end of it all. Gold and silver are to preserve wealth outside of the debt system, NOT to serve as an alternate currency in SHTF scenarios. Some things to think about.

hoarder | 01-04-2010 11:23 PM
Re: The Bosnian Experience............. Quote:
After the war I have moved to USA and since then have served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans both as a soldier with elite unit of US Army and as a private contractor
Slow learner, huh?

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