Giga on Operation Storm: People Matter, Not Ranks
71-year-old Nenad Šarić Giga, a volunteer in the Homeland War, recalls the days before Operation Storm, the death of Brigadier Ivan Čanić Baja, and the comrades he lost.
71-year-old Nenad Šarić Giga, a volunteer in the Homeland War, recalls the days before Operation Storm, the death of Brigadier Ivan Čanić Baja, and the comrades he lost.
Nenad Šarić Giga, a 71-year-old volunteer and participant in the Homeland War, remembers the people he shared the hardest days with every year at this time with special sorrow. In an interview with Zadarski list, this teacher, athlete, and musician from Lički Osik told his story of expulsion, the war on the Lika front, and the loss of comrades, emphasizing that in war, ranks were never important-people were.
Nenad Šarić Giga's wartime journey began with expulsion. He and his elderly father Ante, a former Dalmatian partisan who worked at the "Marko Orešković" factory after World War II, were expelled from Lički Osik, which was then renamed Teslingrad. Although he could have gone to his brothers in Germany, he chose to stay in Lika. "I couldn't allow myself to leave Lika and Croatia. I was happy to be able to watch the town of my youth from the Šuplja glava hill, less than a kilometer away," he recalled.
As a sergeant in the 118th Brigade, later the 118th Home Guard Regiment, Giga spent almost the entire war at the Šuplja glava hill. He described it as a period of continuous fighting. "At Šuplja glava, we repelled hundreds of enemy attacks, almost every day. When a day and night passed peacefully, it seemed unusual to us, because even the silence of war has its meaning, but also its price," he said.
He particularly remembers August 3, 1995, when the commander, Brigadier Ivan Čanić Baja, visited his unit in the evening. That was the first time he heard the name of the final operation. "He surprised us a bit when he said, all happy: 'Just let us finish Operation Storm and end this damned and imposed war!'" Giga recounted. That evening, they visited command posts along an eight-kilometer frontline, all the way to the Pogledalo hill, and waited for dawn. Unfortunately, it was the last dawn in the life of Brigadier Čanić Baja. He was killed the very next day, August 4, 1995, in a direct attack near Široka Kula on Vujatovo brdo, just four days before his 40th birthday. "Everyone who knew him will confirm that he was a superb officer, commander, and man," Giga emphasized.
Giga also remembered his comrade, Lieutenant of Artillery Zoran Trtica, for whom he says it is "a true miracle and rare luck" that he was not wounded or killed. He described him as an exceptionally brave man who, after the war, devoted himself to a modest life on his estate and then to painting. "I often joke and say that my friend Zoran was a master of artillery in the war, after the war a master of the tractor and chainsaw, and now he has pleasantly surprised us all by replacing all that with a paintbrush and easel," he said. Recently, 52 of Trtica's paintings were exhibited in Gospić.
Giga also recounted that before the war, Martić's paramilitary forces had detained Trtica several times because he seemed suspicious to them-he was quiet, didn't get involved in politics, and did his job. "People like that were the most suspicious to them. All of us suspicious types were detained by the local scum, the idlers, and later war criminals," he commented.
At the end of the interview, Giga returned to what pains him the most. "During the war, I lost two soldiers, and that's something you don't forget. I always respected my comrades, and I still enjoy meeting them today. Every Operation Storm, I remember all those dear people who are no longer with us," he said. He added that he is also affected by today's attitude toward veterans: "One of the injustices I can't stand today is that sometimes it seems to me that we Croatian veterans have become a nuisance to someone, that we are just a number."
Despite everything, he is proud that he returned to Lički Osik immediately after Operation Storm and that today he lives with his son Ante on General Ivan Čanić Baja Street. "We mostly live very modestly and ask for nothing," he concluded.
