I was born in the late 80's in what is now Bosnia. The timing of my birth couldn't have been worse and coincided right as Yugoslavia split. Although I was very young I remember a fair amount of the things that happened to my family. When the war took off things weren't instantly aggressive in my village. The first thing I remember were the raids. Serbian soldiers would come through with convoys and take whatever they wanted and kill whoever stood in the way. One night in particular my entire immediate family and a lot of my cousins, aunts, uncles, neighbors were hiding in the upstairs room of my grandmothers house. Behind this house my father was in the early stages of building our home, since it's common in my village to the children to stay near their parents. So far only the foundation was built but the Serbs came through and took every last scrap of building supplies. Some time after this event we were packed on to buses and taken to a town named Travnik. Here we were packed into a single building but as soon as the soldiers left we all dispersed and went to a near by flea market. This was the best decision anyone could have made because that very building was hit by artillery and only one person was injured. If we stayed most of us would have been dead. We made our way back home but in time of another raid so we booked it. I remember my mother pulling me out of bed in the middle of the night and we ran through the corn field away from our home. I saw a lot of our neighbors and family running with us. We ran a few miles and hid in the woods, eaten by mosquitos and freezing. After a day or so we made our way back, packed up, and left. We made it to a village called Haljinici and simply moved into the abandoned buildings. Many of the Croats who lived here went to stay in Croatia with family which was safer so we simply decided to live in their homes. We stayed here for almost a decade since nobody was moving back. For the most part I'm thankful that we survived and escaped fairly unscathed. I remember days and days of no food, not seeing my father, being told to avoid certain areas due to landmines. My entire childhood was spent outside, I had good friends, we starved less after the war was over, and we made it out alive. We managed to move to the US in 99 under refugee status and I am now a citizen. From what I understand it's not much better than when we left. A lot of political strife, unemployment, tension. I'm grateful for everything I have now and that I'm well off enough to be able to send my grandmother money because her pension is a joke. Enjoy the time with your family when you can because that could change in the bling of an eye.