Discussion with Yugoslavia Gunner Whose Job It Was to Shoot Down NATO Planes
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Exactly one year ago, NATO launched a 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia. To mark the anniversary, Yugoslav officials laid flowers on damaged buildings, including the Chinese embassy, hit by a bomb in what NATO said was an accident. The bombing ended when Belgrade withdrew its troops from Kosovo. CNN's Alessio Vinci spoke with a gunner whose job was to shoot down NATO planes.</s>ALESSIO VINCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what the world saw night after night during a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, the night sky filled with Yugoslav anti-aircraft fire. What the world did not see was the men who were firing it. Milan Galovic was one of those men.</s>MILAN GALOVIC, YUGOSLAV AIR DEFENSES (through translator): It was the fight against an invisible enemy. My idea about war was very different. I believed they would see the planes and fight against them.</s>VINCI: Two days after NATO began its bombing campaign, 29-year- old Galovic got the call to report to the nearest military barracks. Galovic was a journalist working for a state-owned newspaper. He's also an army reservists, trained to operate a 30-millimeter twin cannon machine gun, widely used by the Yugoslav air defenses in the war against NATO. Most of the time, NATO jets flew at 15, 000 feet, out of reach of antiaircraft guns. Missiles were hard to intercept. Galovic says he relied on old tactics to spot incoming threats.</s>GALOVIC (through translator): Besides radars and informants within Nato, we provide the system of radio communication through which soldiers scattered throughout Yugoslavia would inform us about the direction of the planes. It was probably primitive, but useful.</s>VINCI: There was no anger in him, he says. His fight was against planes, not pilots. And one night, he says, he saw a plane flying lower than than usual.</s>GALOVIC (through translator): When I hit that particular plane, I was thinking if the pilot got killed or if he survived. I the wanted to find out what happened, if I killed somebody or not. I still don't know, but I suppose he landed somewhere outside Yugoslavia.</s>VINCI: Galovic's gun was mounted on an armored truck which allowed him to move around the outskirts of Belgrade. What he mostly remembers about the days in the war was the kindness of the population toward the the Yugoslav soldiers.</s>GALOVIC (through translator): They were full of understanding. They were even taking care of us, bringing us food and allowing us to make phone calls to our families.</s>VINCI: Would he do it again? it is hard to answer, he said, but if all my country and all my people were to be in danger, he would fight without getting into details about who is guilty. Alessio Vinci, CNN, Belgrade.