The Observer Role

My job as an officer, my role as an officer is the execution of violence. You either execute it in a peaceful manner or a violent manner. Now you notice I said the execution of violence, not... I don’t do it, I plan it, I lead men to do it. So it’s very hard when all of a sudden your role becomes to be an observer only and you can do nothing about it and that was very hard. Were we scared? Yes, scared stiff. Most of us were. You didn’t show it, you had your way of getting around it, but yes, you were scared. But you knew that if we could have the biggest machine gun in town, it made no difference. Somebody would have a bigger one. Having none threw them all for a loop. We were unarmed and everybody knew it and so it was no use shooting me and say - oops, it was a mistake, because everybody knew we didn’t have a weapon. And UNTSO answered to the Security Council and so whenever we, and believe me, we had guys that were caught in fire-fights, and what had happened, was there’d be four or five of us all from different countries would get together and get a vehicle and get out of the vehicle and start walking towards where our guys were under fire, and you know what? Both sides would stop firing, because when all of a sudden you’ve got explain why you’re killing an American, a Russian, a Dutch, a Norwegian, a Canadian, it becomes kind of hard.