Bosko Peric
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Bosko Peric (pronounced Bosh-koh Peh-rich) was a Bosnian Serb, a legendary hero of the Bosnian Serb struggle for the secession from Bosnia-Herzegovina in the war of 1992-1995. Born November 1, 1971, in the village of Razljevo near Brcko in northern Bosnia and killed in battle on November 14, 1994, on Majevica mountain, miles away from his birthplace, Peric was better known to his contemporaries as Pesa (pron. Pesha).
Born in a peasant family, Peric left home when he was 15 and went to live with his older sister's family in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he finished high school. In 1989, the mandatory service in the Yugoslav Army took him to Titograd (today's Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.) He was discharged with the rank of lieutenant. Upon the expiration of the mandatory year of military service, Peric returned to Slovenia and found a job in the coastal town of Kopar, working in telecommunications.
On the eve of the war in Croatia, he caught one of the last trains back home to Bosnia and immediately enlisted with the Yugoslav Army Reserves. A fearless fighter and a commander without any kind of formal military education, Pesa distinguished himself in the early days of the Bosnian war. His baptism by fire happened in the Spring of 1992 during the liberation of the town of Samac by the then-Yugoslav Army from the hands of Bosnian Muslim paramilitaries, when he fought as a member of Red Berrets, an elite Serbian paramilitary units. It was also the first of six times he was wounded.
In August 1992, Peric formed his own special operations unit, initially numbering 19 men. When the leadership of the First Posavinian Brigade (Serbian: Prva Posavska Brigada) of the Army of Republika Srpska (Serbian: Vojska Republike Srpske; VRS) decided to merge all of its special ops units into a joint formation in March of 1993, Peric became the commander of the newly formed unit. It was also decided that the unit bears the name "Pesa," after its commander, as a tribute to his leadership, patriotism and bravery.
After multiple and constant engagements in Posavina, defending the Corridor and the key Bosnian Serb city of Brcko, the Pesa Unit volunteered to go help break out some 70 Bosnian Serb soldiers surrounded by Bosnian Muslim forces on Majevica mountain. It would be Peric's last battle, as he was killed in the hand-to-hand combat by an enemy hand grenade.
Today, a major town square in the city of Brcko bears his name.
