Five law majors and a faculty member-Firsties Amanda Choate, Arron Conley, Ashley Ehasz, Alex Santiago, Cow Chris Frasse and Maj. Rich Meyer from the Department of Law-spent 18 days traveling to 13 cities in six countries on the inaugural War Crimes Staff Ride Academic Individual Advanced Development trip, which turned out to be a life-changing adventure.
The first stop was Washington, D.C., where legal historian Gary Solis, Ph.D., talked to the group about the My Lai massacre and subsequent investigation and prosecutions. After a quick jaunt across the National Mall and a tour of the Capitol Building, the group headed over to the Holocaust Museum where they met with John Heffernan and discussed the current initiatives to prevent war crimes worldwide.
As if the day was not full enough already, the group sat down with the Chairman of the International Committee on Missing Persons, James Kimsey. Kimsey, Class of 1962, and known for founding America Online, talked about the committee's work in identifying the remains from mass graves in the former Yugoslavia, to include Vukovar, Croatia and Srebrenica, Bosnia. Kimsey emphasized the need to give survivors of mass atrocities closure on knowing the final locations of their loved ones.
From Washington, the group jetted to Rome and then down to the famous battlefield of Monte Cassino to discuss the controversial bombing of the ancient monastery there. Sitting below the hill stormed by allied troops looking up at the rebuilt monastery, the cadets analyzed the allied decision to attack the cultural property from every angle and point of view. After a detour to the ruins of Pompeii, the group returned to Rome and walked through the Coliseum. In this ancient forum of death, the group sat and discussed the evolution of warfare since the days of the empire and, not only the law, but also simple respect for humanity mandates the ethical treatment of captured personnel.
From ancient to more modern wars, the next stop was in the former Yugoslavia.
Traveling through the battlefield town of Vukovar, the cadets saw buildings blown apart by the war and others still cratered with bullet and shrapnel holes from the 1991 seige. Fields were still covered with minefield warnings and the tour passed a United Nations mine recovery operation in progress. They also entered the bunker of a hospital where wounded Croatian combatants were seized by Serbian forces. The group followed the eight kilometers the wounded Soldiers were forced to march on their way to their massacre and burial on a farm outside the city.
The following day, the cadets made the long trek by back roads through Bosnia to the city of Srebrenica, the site of the infamous genocide committed by Bosnian Serbs in 1995. Walking through the former U.N. encampment of Potocari, they were guided by a professor of history from Tuzla University, Azir Oswanovic. For him, the battlefield was still very real. Oswanovic was 13 when the Bosnian Serb forces conquered the U.N. "safe zone" of Srebrenica and Potocari.
He vividly recounted how he was forced through a checkpoint with his best friend, who was also 13. While Oswanovic was able to pass through, his friend was pulled from the line. His friend was never seen alive again, ending up in a mass grave.
The next section of the tour encompassed five cities in Germany--Munich, Dachau, Nuremberg, Wurzburg and Rothenberg. The group walked through the rise and fall of Nazism, from the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, site of the massive congregations before the war, to the atrocity that was the concentration camp at Dachau. They saw the total destruction of Wurzburg by British air raids and took a virtual tour and saw a presentation on the Nuremberg courtroom of the International Military Tribunal. The cadets viewed the war crimes of World War II from the perspective of perpetrator, victim, survivor and prosecutor.
The final stop on this adventure was The Hague, Netherlands. The cadets met with International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Dan Saxon and learned about Slobadan Milosevic's prosecution, which was cut short by the defendant's death. They then observed the trial of Croatian Gen. Ante Gotovina, a man the group saw hailed as a hero back in Vukovar.
"We wanted to create the premier AIAD experience, and I think we accomplished it," Col. Dave Wallace, deputy chair of the Dept. of Law and head of its AIAD program, said. "I believe these five lucky cadets will remember this trip for the rest of their lives."
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