One minute, Mark Lundie was fast asleep in his Canadian army tent, the next he was walking down an exposed road in no-man’s land, directly towards a “defensive” Croatian position.
Moments earlier, the Steveston native — while serving in Croatia in 1993 as a reservist in a Canadian-led United Nations (UN) peacekeeping force — was awoken by bullets raining down on his UN tent.
“We fired back and they stopped firing,” recalled Lundie, before setting off on his breakfast “walk” to question the Croatians.
He was one of four soldiers strolling the 400 metres to the origin of the gunfire, to ask the Croatians why they were shooting at his platoon, which was only there to separate the warring Croats and Serbians.
“As I was walking down, all I could think about was that I didn’t have time to put socks on,” he said.
“I remember thinking, ‘this is ridiculous, and why are we doing this?’”
The Croatian position, said Lundie, was protected by a “big berm,” while he and his comrades were relatively defenceless, other than their rifles.
“We started speaking German to them, as most of them could speak that. We told them to get their commander to ask why they were shooting at us.”
Lundie said the officer popped his head up, only to claim it “wasn’t his guys that did it.”
“He said was this other brigade,” laughed Lundie.
Lundie said his sergeant bluntly explained to the Croatian officer that, if they continued firing, “we would have to reply in kind.
“And he pointed out that behind our position, we have a missile launcher. They didn't fire anymore.”
Lundie, now 49, said he was “army-mad,” even before his family immigrated to Canada from Scotland when he was a young boy.
He said he was 10 when he joined the cadets, but was drawn to the army as a 13-year-old, after seeing “a guy on a bus wearing a kilt with army gear. I knew I wanted that.”
And while still in high school, at 16, Lundie joined the reserve regiment Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver.
Several years later, in 1993, he was deployed to Croatia, voluntarily joining forces with the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
They were initially tasked with keeping the peace in northern Croatia, in the midst of that country’s “Operation Medak Pocket,” in which the Croats sought to push the Serbians out of a disputed region, resulting in scores of war crimes amid “ethnic cleansing.”
There was never a dull moment, recalled Lundie, including one time when his 35-strong platoon was held hostage for 18 hours by a large, angry mob of Serbian soldiers.
“We were doing a patrol in a Serb area and they weren't happy with a previous deployment seizing some of their equipment,” said Lundie.
“They even put their kids underneath the tracks of our armoured vehicles to stop us from moving. They kind of ambushed us.
“They climbed on top of our vehicles and tried to take our heavy weapons off the vehicles.
“We couldn't let them do that, so it basically devolved into a big punch-up. We were well outnumbered.”
Eventually, the two sides’ commanding officers, after a long meeting, came to an agreement and Lundie and his platoon were set free.
“It could have went sideways very quickly. But I don't think they wanted that. They just wanted to make a point.
“That was a tense 18 hours, in the heat in May.”
The Canadian’s UN peacekeeping mission flew under the radar until the mid-2000s, when a journalist started asking questions and connecting the dots.
“We stabilized the entire region. It showed both sides that the UN couldn't stand back and watch this happen,” Lundie added.
Still serving in the Seaforth Highlanders, now a Master Warrant Officer, Lundie has enjoyed a successful career with the RCMP, where he is a sergeant at E-Division HQ in Surrey.
In his role with the RCMP, he also spent a year in Afghanistan, in 2011, as a counter terrorism mentor and advisor for the Afghan National Police.
