PHOTO: Blood and Pieces of Flesh On Windscreen

During his 4 tours in Iraq, truck driver Zdenko Bogovic survived all attacks on his convoy, watched a friend get killed, Americans fleeing.

ZAGREB, CROATIA - - I am not an adventurer! I went there for the money – Zdenko admitted, staring at a glass of beer in front of him. 

His thoughts drifted back to Iraq,  to the bloody past which there is no way to erase.

- It is not some experience, something you go through and try to forget as soon as possible. It is a nightmare that leaves a mark on your entire life, with which you have to learn to live with because you can’t go on otherwise. There was just too much blood, flesh, bodies… To much death – Zdenko said, at which moment tears filled his eyes.

He remembered every minute of his four-year hell he went through in Iraq, every wound from every shrapnel on his body and his killed friend Dalibor Burazovic.

- What can I say? I simply had no choice. I drove truck for many, but a lot of them did not pay. And I have a wife and two small children at home – says a former Croatian Homeland Defence War soldier and one of the first Croatian truck driver in Iraq.

You can never know where you are with the Americans. You never know what they are thinking, planning or what is waiting for you. On one occasion one Iraqi attacked me with a knife for no reason and I defended myself. I beat him up. The Americans took him to hospital and kicked me off the base. Can you imagine? I spent five nights sleeping outside the base, feeling like a pig in Tehran! It was a miracle that I stayed alive!

Zdenko Bogovic

- I left for Iraq on November 23, 2004, together with Damir Plantas and another Croatian. The wages were excellent, as much as 3,500 euros a month, which was more than enough of a motive. Of course, at the time, we could not even imagine where we were in fact going and what we would be in for – Zdenko said.

Out of 47 trucks, only three arrived to the destination 

He admitted that even today he is not sure what exactly they were transporting in their trucks.

- Who would know?! It was up to us to drive the truck to the American base gate outside of Frankfurt and disappear for a while. In the meantime, the Americans would load up the trucks, seal the truck and write on it that we were delivering toothpaste, soaps, towels… But what was in fact in there only they know – he said.

He recalled hundreds of tours driving through the burning Iraq.

- There was a tour from the Al Habini base to a base in Fallujah. But since no civilians ever entered that area before, we remained in Baghdad for almost a moth and a half. When we finally started out, we drove in a convoy of 47 trucks and immediately were fired upon from all sides. Fortunately, none of the Croatian guys got hurt, but some dozen American soldiers who accompanied us were killed. On the same route, as we almost reached Fallujah, we were attacked again and out of the 47 trucks, only three of us made it to the destination: A Czech, my friend and myself. When we finally, exhausted, arrived at the base, the Americans refused to let us in because it was after 5:30 in the afternoon. I went crazy because I knew what would happen if we stayed outside of the base, so I took all my clothes off, came up to the gate and screamed: “Either kill me or let me in! I’m not staying out here!” Then they let us in.

Four shrapnel wounds as memory of Iraq 

He buried three trucks at the Iraqi iron junk yard.

- What accompaniment? What American army! Yes, we were accompanied by American soldiers, but if you accidentally threw a lighter out of an open window, fled ran like little mice! And you’re left alone, in the end, without a truck, because the other side has destroyed it. And when it got rough and the truck could no longer run, if you have the time, you grab your bag with documents and run out of there. If you don’t have the time, you leave the bag behind and run – Zdenko explained.

Then he showed us his wounds from shrapnel.

- Second, third… oh, there’s the fourth one. That was nothing, what matters is that you are still alive. Through what we have been through, it is a wonder… I remember, we were standing outside a base in the town of Alkuta waiting for the trucks to get unloaded when a car bomb ran into the base wall. We felt the earth shake and smelt burning. Everything was surrounded in smoke and shrapnel and the Americans started running, screaming in panic: “F*ck off! F*ck off!”. Not even two minutes later, as everybody was still panicking, a truck bomb ran into that same wall. Now, that was a real earthquake. Unseen horror. I was sitting in my truck, watching blood and human flesh stick to my windshield. I grabbed the radio and contacted by colleague, Cuka, in the next truck: “Did you see that?”. And he replied very calmly: “Old man, sh*t will it the fan” – Zdenko continued.

Dalibor trusted a Croatian, Marko 

For four whole years, shrapnel and bullets kept flying all over the place, car bombs were blowing up, but Zdenko somehow managed to get from base to base alive. Another Croatian, Dalibor Buzanic, unfortunately, was not of such luck.

- Dalibor was not supposed to have been killed. Unfortunately, he was killed because of somebody else’s stupidity and his inexperience of driving through Iraq. All trucks were accompanied by the American military, but you had to wait for them. If you were in a hurry and could not wait for the soldiers, then you would sign a paper saying you assumed all responsibility and you were able to leave. But once you get out of the base, the gates close behind you and there is no turning back. Dalibor believed the story of a Croatian who lived and worked in Iraq for 40 years by the name of Marko. He said that he knew of a safe shortcut to Dalibor’s destination. Nine trucks left the base and one by one, they all passed by the inexperienced Dalibor, leaving him alone on the road. When we heard that only eight trucks arrived at the destination, we knew immediately that somebody was killed – Zdenko said.

It was very evident how difficult it was for him to recall his friend being killed.

A human flesh pyramid 

- It took a long time before we realised who was missing. Tihomor Ladisic, a reporter for the Croatian Television, arrived, and then we looked over satellite images together. We realised by what the truck looked like that it was Dalibor. We got to his body on a road in Mosul two days later and took him to one of the mortuaries. An Iraqi man, Razi, explained to us that we had to find his body as soon as possible because otherwise they would extract his organs. Since there were no refrigerators there, bodies were placed in rooms one on top on another. This is something most horrifying that remains in my memory. It was like a human flesh pyramid. With the help of Razi, we dug through the pile of bodies until we found Dalibor at the very bottom. Then we organised everything ourselves for him to return to Croatia because waiting for somebody to do something was useless – he said.

With his thoughts in Iraq, Dalibor and all the spilled blood that marked every day of his four years there, Zdenko concluded:

- I don’t know if it was worth it. Who knows? Maybe financially, but in no other way. Then again, how do I buy peaceful dreams, the time spent without my family… Not a day goes by that I do not remember everything and cry. Luckily, driving trucks is no longer profitable. Today there are so many truck drivers there that a driver’s wage is only 800 euros, which is how much I can make here, in Europe.