Well, I'm still in date on my anthrax jabs, so if they're gonna do it, can they do it before the end of July please?!!
I worked at the Brazda refugee camp in Macedonia in 1999. It was shocking to see the tired, injured, raped, emotionally scarred people entering the camp from Kosovo, many leaving murdered relatives behind. A sytem had to be put in to place to help these people though, and our regiment took one side of the camp to feed, clothe and shelter, and a field hospital was set up to look after the many injured people.
I'd say 99.9% of the displaced refugees acted in a selfless way throughout, some even stayed with us to aid in translations without a thought of the danger they may be putting themselves in or asking for any reward. I only ever saw one person try to push into a queue, which would often stretch for 500 metres. The guy had been through just recently and had said he had 4 children and a wife, he was now back for more and didn't care that others had waited for hours.
I completely flipped out and dragged him to the back of the queue whilst a translator told all of the people that he had pushed in and was literally taking their food and clothing. I probably shouldn't have reacted quite as I did, but I saw the unfairness and greediness in this man that i pretty much detest, he argued with me but I left him without any doubt that that sort of behaviour was not tolerated at our aid post.
If any of you remember the video clips from Brazda, a lot of them show the Italian and American troops throwing bundles of food off of the back of a truck into a baying crowd of refugees. Not the way to do it. This is where the true nature of people is seen, compounded by fear of hunger if they don't grab something quick, desperation and sometimes greed. The american troops came to our aid post as they heard ours was the best on the camp, and people working in other refugee camps in the surrounding areas came to see how we ran our aid post. We set the standard that others followed, and a fairer system of handing out supplies to give everybody a chance of getting something.
I worked at the Brazda refugee camp in Macedonia in 1999. It was shocking to see the tired, injured, raped, emotionally scarred people entering the camp from Kosovo, many leaving murdered relatives behind. A sytem had to be put in to place to help these people though, and our regiment took one side of the camp to feed, clothe and shelter, and a field hospital was set up to look after the many injured people.
I'd say 99.9% of the displaced refugees acted in a selfless way throughout, some even stayed with us to aid in translations without a thought of the danger they may be putting themselves in or asking for any reward. I only ever saw one person try to push into a queue, which would often stretch for 500 metres. The guy had been through just recently and had said he had 4 children and a wife, he was now back for more and didn't care that others had waited for hours.
I completely flipped out and dragged him to the back of the queue whilst a translator told all of the people that he had pushed in and was literally taking their food and clothing. I probably shouldn't have reacted quite as I did, but I saw the unfairness and greediness in this man that i pretty much detest, he argued with me but I left him without any doubt that that sort of behaviour was not tolerated at our aid post.
If any of you remember the video clips from Brazda, a lot of them show the Italian and American troops throwing bundles of food off of the back of a truck into a baying crowd of refugees. Not the way to do it. This is where the true nature of people is seen, compounded by fear of hunger if they don't grab something quick, desperation and sometimes greed. The american troops came to our aid post as they heard ours was the best on the camp, and people working in other refugee camps in the surrounding areas came to see how we ran our aid post. We set the standard that others followed, and a fairer system of handing out supplies to give everybody a chance of getting something.