: Irish volunteers fighting for a free Croatia(Ustashia)
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http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=91246 
Many Germans who fought in the brutal Croat - Muslim war, which lasted a year, married local Croat women and settled down in the country attracted to the Croat view of the world and their ideas of Racial Purity.
In a tradition that goes back hundreds of years to the “Wild Geese” and beyond and like many hundreds of thousands of Irish men before who fought and died on many Foreign battle fields “for freedoms sake”. Irish men heard the distant drum of battle and took up arms for a free Croatia. As with other Nationalities the figures for Irish men who took part in the war is not known but a number of casualties appeared in the Newspapers. One young man injured in battle told his parents he was going to work in Euro Disney in Paris; he rang them from his Hospital bed to tell them he was in Croatia.
Another headline read, “Croatia fighter loses legs”. Paul Ahern (23) from County Cork lost both legs in a landmine explosion fighting in Bosnia. His father said “He was just sorry for the Croatian people and what they were going through”.Irish Newspapers carried reports of a 22 year old Dubliner, Ivan Farina, He lost an eye in another landmine explosion while on an operation with HOS in Croatian occupied Bosnia. He spent several weeks in a coma in Hospital before his family evacuated him to Dublin.
Tony Cascarino is the pseudonym of a young Irishman who fought on many bloody battle fields in Croatia. His Grandfather was a commander in the I.R.A. and took part in the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence and is the subject of one of his manuscripts (Available on the Internet) “Armistice Day” and his exploits are brought to life in the manuscript “A Millennium Memory”. he was a member of the elite 1st Tiger Brigade and his unit consisted of five English men, three Irishmen (the other two Irish men being Ex - French Foreign Legion Paratroopers, Tony spent a couple of years in the British Army) and one from Denmark, France and the U.S.A. Tony didn’t support the tactics of the I.R.A. but said “I felt sympathetic, I had always felt sympathetic and I always believed in a United 32 County Secular Ireland. He distinguished himself in battle and was held in high regard by the Volunteers in his unit and the Croatians he came into contact with because of his compassion and bravery. He fought right until the end of the war.
Shane McCormic from Athlone in County Westmeath was a former French Foreign Legionnaire, who became involved in the war through a Croatian friend who was also a Legionnaire. Shane fought with HOS and offered fierce resistance to the Serbian invasion of Eastern Croatia in the winter of 1991 and 1992. He was enthusiastic about his work which involved killing Chetniks. He gave an interview while sitting in a Zagreb restaurant, looking out at the rain. He was quoted as saying “Great weather for fighting, when its raining like this you get a bunch of Chatniks huddled in a bunker, you lob in a grenade and bang, all out in one go”.
These men are not the only Irish men who became involved in the carnage of war in the former Yugoslavia. Remember all Foreign Volunteers Irish or otherwise who fought and died for the Freedom of Croatia.
Topic: : Irish volunteers fighting for a free Croatia(Ustashia) (Read 3022 times)