My War Memoirs: A Soldier’s Hunger- Surviving Under Fire in the Croatian War (Chapter 31.)

 

My War Memoirs: A Soldier’s Hunger-Surviving Under Fire in the Croatian War

They say a man is defined by what he craves most. Some dream of power, others of sailing distant seas. Me? I spent my whole life dreaming of a full plate. Back in my neck of the woods in Slavonia—where the soil is black and fertile, and people are measured by the width of their smile and the depth of their pantry—they called me a "gladuš." A glutton. I was that guy who, while still chewing the last bite of lunch, would look at you with a hint of existential dread and ask, "So, what’s for dinner?"

Absurdity was my shadow from day one. I was malnourished to the point that my ribs looked like a xylophone every time I scratched my chest. My friends used to joke that I’d disappear if I turned sideways. What they didn't get was that my skinniness wasn't a fashion statement or a fast metabolism. It was a quiet, stubborn hunger that became my identity the day my grandmother—the only pillar of warmth in my life—closed her eyes for the last time, right after my fifteenth birthday. With her went the smell of the roux that used to wake me up, the scent of homemade bread that warmed my palms. The feeling that the world was a safe place as long as something was simmering on the stove.

I was left with my grandfather. A man to whom cooking was a foreign concept and showing emotion was a sign of unforgivable weakness. Our life together was a Cold War in a tiny apartment: a generation gap as deep as a canyon, his stinginess which bordered on high art, and my puberty screaming for attention, a new jacket, and muscles I had no calories to build. While other kids in class were measuring who had the better sneakers, I was measuring how many notches I had left on my belt.

To survive the bullying, to hide that hole in my stomach and my soul, I grew a shell. I became prickly, aggressive—the kind of kid who snarls first so he doesn't get bitten. It was my poverty camouflage. Then came the foster home. My uncle and grandfather passed me off like an unwanted package to save their own comfort. That place was a military drill before the actual army. The food was a pale shadow of what a human body needs, the portions mathematically calculated to keep you on the edge of survival, and the feeling of rejection was heavier than any breakfast. I worked part-time as a busboy, sprinting between school and shifts in some smoke-filled joint just to have a few bucks for a pastry or a greasy burek. While my peers were out having fun, I was a perpetual laborer in search of a spare calorie, trapped in a system where freedom was a luxury I could rarely afford.

"Hunger isn't just a lack of calories; it’s that feeling that the world forgot to feed you love, so you just hope the stew is thick enough to fill the void."

That’s why, when the war broke out, and I put on the uniform of the Croatian Army, I didn't feel fear. I felt relief. It’s ironic, I know—while others were dodging the draft, I ran toward it because, for the first time in my life, I was taken care of. As a soldier, I had a paycheck, my first real money that made me feel like a human being, but most importantly—we had cooked meals and breakfast rations. The army was a five-star hotel to me. Ivanovac, the cellar, and those tin mess kits clanking like a beautiful symphony—that was my altar. I felt like a joyful kid; I’d wiggle my ass while eating and hum a tune, because after four years of agonizing over a piece of bread, someone was finally serving me a hot, fragrant meal.

Before every one of those sacred moments, when the smell of cooked beans or kale stew began to waft through the cellar, a hush would fall over us. No matter the noise or the exhaustion after 24 hours in a trench, we always prayed. I would grip the rosary hanging around my neck, clutching it with the same fingers that had just been holding a rifle, and sincerely thank God that I was part of a tribe. I wasn't alone, and above all, that I wasn't hungry. That sense of community at that long wooden table in the cellar was stronger than any ideology.

One afternoon in Ivanovac, the sky was that indecisive shade of gray that usually signals either rain or a mortar attack. We had finished our shift behind the house, swept the dust and plaster shaken loose by the morning’s detonations, and waited for the holiest of arrivals: the food truck. Gajo, a mountain of a man with hands like shovels and a heart even bigger, just winked at me while I was sweeping.

"Let’s go, kid. The Great White Whale is here," he said, referring to the massive white plastic barrel full of beans from the kitchen in Čepin.

The truck always stopped in the same spot near the church, tucked behind a half-destroyed house so it wouldn't get zeroed in by a grenade. That stretch of road, those hundred yards from our shelter to the truck, was a kill zone. We moved like mice, in timed intervals so as not to draw a crowd. Gajo and I grabbed the barrel. It weighed a good hundred pounds, with sharp plastic edges and stubby handles that bit into the meat of our palms. Behind us, two other guys carried crates of bread, meat, and those precious strudels that were our only luxury.

"Listen," Gajo whispered as we prepped to dash across the road, "stay in sync. Don't let the beans slosh or we’ll lose our balance. If we spill this, there’s no second helpings."

We crouched low and stepped out into the open. The road, the ditch, the small bridge. A clearing where you were a target the size of a billboard in broad daylight. And then it started. The buzzing. The sound of a bullet passing your head isn't like the movies; it’s a sharp, angry "zzzip" that freezes your blood because you know it was meant for you. We didn't know if they were just firing randomly or if they’d spotted us, but the bullets were buzzing like a swarm of hornets.

Suddenly, mid-sprint, I heard a dull, wet sound. Plop. Then again, plop-it.

The barrel shivered and got weirdly heavy on one side. I looked down and froze. A bullet had punched through the plastic right in the middle and exited the other side. Through the entry and exit holes, like blood from a wounded man, hot, thick beans began to geyser out onto the asphalt.

Without a second thought, and without a shred of Hollywood heroism, Gajo instinctively jammed his index finger into one hole, and I jammed mine into the other. And we kept running. It was the most bizarre scene that village had ever seen: two soldiers in full gear, under fire, zig-zagging across the road holding their fingers inside a barrel of beans as if they were plugging a severed artery. We ran clumsily, stumbling, with bean juice dripping down our fingers, but we didn't let go. Those beans, at that moment, were worth more than our heads. They were a symbol of everything I’d missed in life—warmth, fullness, and dignity.

We burst into the courtyard and dived into the safety of the cellar, panting, sweating, and sticky with roux. The rest of the guys, who were waiting with spoons ready, went silent watching us stand there like two statues with our fingers stuck in plastic. Then, a roar of laughter erupted that shook the cellar walls harder than any shell.

"Bravo, heroes! The lunch is saved by your magic little fingers!" they yelled through tears of laughter, patting us on the back. "This goes in the war diary—defense of the beans at any cost!"

We all laughed, but nobody said the obvious out loud. It was only when I sat down, took my tin bowl, and touched my rosary again before the first bite, that the cold truth hit me. Those two holes in the barrel were exactly at the height of our stomachs. If that bullet had been just four inches to the left or right, it wouldn't have been beans bleeding onto the road. Gajo or I would have been writhing on that concrete with our guts blown out, life fading in a matter of minutes.

In war, life takes on this bizarre, raw value. You try to turn everything into a joke, even your own death, just to stay sane. You rejoice over a lunch that almost cost you your life, you bless God for every bite, and you feel like you’re in a luxury hotel while everything around you turns to ash. Those little things—the smell of the stew we’d reheat for dinner, the murmur of friends in the safety of a cellar, and those “battle-scarred” beans—made me feel more alive than any new clothes or money ever could. It was the fate of a lifelong gladuš: to risk it all for a full stomach. Because once you’ve known that true, quiet hunger that eats you from the inside, you know that a warm bowl is worth stopping a bullet with your finger. It wasn't just food; it was proof we were still here, that we were human, and that not even a bullet could stop us from being full and happy, just for a moment.