Why a Booktrail?
1990s: The truth behind being a war correspondent in 1990s Bosnia
My War Gone By, I Miss It So
What you need to know before your trail
Ex-infantry officer Anthony Loyd arrived in Bosnia hoping to become a war correspondent. He left behind a damaged, distinguished military family and swapped one kind of addiction for another; drink and drugs for the adrenaline of combat. In the Balkans he became truly embedded – both appalled and involved – by the war’s cruel chaos.
In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among the Serbs, Croatians and Bosnian Muslims he was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered. But returning home, empty and craving adrenaline, he would face his own frailties until he could bear it no longer.
Locations
Reset- Balkans - Bosnia Herzegovina
- A: Sarajevo - Miljacka River
- B: Vojvode Putnika
- C: Grbavica
Travel Guide
Balkans and Bosnia Herzegovina
Anthony Loyd is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has reported from numerous conflict zones including the Balkans, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq and Chechnya. A former infantry officer, he left the British army after the First Gulf War and went to live in Bosnia, where he started reporting for The Times. My War Gone By, I Miss It So is his memoir of that conflict. More recently, in 2014, he was kidnapped, shot and then escaped while reporting in Syria.
“We lived in the street below at the edge of Sarajevo’s ruined parliament building in a small strip of the city sandwiched between the front line Miljacka River and the wide expanse of Vojvode Putnika, the street named Sniper’s Alley soon after the war began.”
“There was no way round it, if you wanted to go anywhere else in the capital you had to deal with Vojvode Putnika. Empty your mind, fill your lungs and kick out for the centre knowing that if it happened then you would not hear it, merely get smashed forward onto your face by a mighty punch. Some people never bothered to leave the area. They waited for others to bring them food, growing paler and madder with frustration on the way.”
BookTrail Boarding Pass: My War Gone By, I Miss It So
Destination: Balkans, Bosnia and Herzegovina Author/guide: Anthony Loyd Departure Time: 1990s
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