Issue link: http://www.wacmagazine.com/i/1535304
SPRING / SUMMER 2025 33 Continued on page 34 my mom," Suzana says. Suzana soon learned that NATO needed translators and interpreters who could help with border negotiations. "For the first time in years I felt like I was going to be part of something bigger than myself," she recalls. "Part of something that would bring peace and stability. ere was no way I could have missed that." The power of communication Offered a position with NATO, Suzana put off college and went to work. She lived on the Slavonski Brod base for two years and quickly became known as the local girl who spoke perfect English and could imitate regional accents. "As a translator, you have to be hyper-aware, but you also have to be invisible," Suzana says. "I had to be in tune with everything that was happening to keep the conversation going. It taught me the power of communication and clarity." While the Dayton Accords estab- lished most borders, some matters were le to local officials. American peace- keepers mediated these conversations through Suzana. She remembers discuss- ing subjects from how to balance access to a cemetery with logging interests, to a fatal car accident involving an army truck. Suzana was also the only person who could cross between the two countries freely, a lone human connection between two towns—Slavonski Brod, Croatia, and Brod, Bosnia—that used to essentially operate as one. "I would go home every weekend, and my mom would have letters for me to deliver or medication to bring back over," she says. "I'd just get my to-do list and go back and forth like that." Leaving home Suzana's good at to-do lists—and at getting things done with heart. It was this laser-focus and open demeanor that attracted her husband, Robert, on the army base. A member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Robert's unit helped rebuild the bridge Suzana used to cross the Sava. He was on his last rotation when they met. "I thought she was the most inter- esting woman in the world," he says. He started attending an aerobics class she taught and introduced himself. "We talked for hours and hours aer that," he recalls. Robert eventually returned to his station in Germany but was determined to see Suzana again. ey planned to meet in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, but American soldiers weren't allowed as tourists. at didn't stop Robert, who convinced his officer to go all the way up the chain of command to the Pentagon to get him the necessary security clear-