Lifeline

Hello, my name is Dragan Bijelic and I am nineteen years old. I am the son of Ruzica and Zoran Bijelic. I have one brother named Dubravko who is twenty-nine. I was born in the small town of Jajce, Bosnia. In Jajce, I spent most of my time at my grandparents' house. Although my hometown is Jajce, most of my childhood was spent in a town called Sipovo which is located about 15 miles away. Sipovo is where most of my dad's side of the family lived. As a child, I loved any activity that did not involve sitting, so I can only imagine that I was a pain to keep an eye on. Since my mother's side of the family was in Jajce, I did a lot of driving back and forth between cities. Luckily, in this process I made a lot of friends for the future. This moving, however, would be cut out when war broke out in 1992.

The breakout of a civil war in Yugoslavia pitted Croatians, Serbians, and Muslim Bosnians against each other. Due to the fact that my mother is Croatian and my father is Serbian, my family was forced to move to a part of Serbia the war would not reach. Sadly, this move was not a simple one because my father was in the army and we had to leave everyone else behind. This whole national separation put a huge twist on the war for my father and many others. Since Jajce was in Bosnia and Sipovo in Serbia, many soldiers from the cities fought against friends they could have been sitting with just a couple of days before. Not only did some fight against friends, some had to fight against family, such as in my father's case. These connections led some soldiers to evade their service and get arrested. Other soldiers did not leave the army. They simply did not fight and rather helped their families as my father did.

When my father's duty was fulfilled we were able to move to Sabac, Serbia where I could finally begin school in peace. My parents and I first lived with my mother's aunt and I began attending kindergarten. I loved being able to just go to school and not worry about having to move anymore. When I started first grade my family did move, but only a few miles away to a house of our own. Along with attending school I began to practice soccer for many hours a day and eventually fell in love with sports. I finished first grade and began the second and it seemed like things were finally settled down. Seemed...

During the civil war, the Serbian army had taken control of many Bosnian regions and the U.N. started seeing some of its military actions as genocide. The U.N., along with the U.S., wanted Serbia to expedite Slobodan Milosevic so that he could be tried for acts of crime against the human race. In 1999 when Serbia refused the U.N. and U.S., forces began to bombard major cities in Serbia, Sabac being one of them. There was a military base across the street from my school and when it was bombed, the shock wave blew out all of the windows on my school. After the first night of the bombardment and hiding in a shelter underneath a hill near our house with many other families, we decided it was time to move back to Sipovo.

After moving back to Sipovo, I resumed my education with my cousins and friends. With our house having been burned in the war, my Uncle, Dad, and other family members spent a lot of time rebuilding each other's houses. Times were not great but it was a lot better than a state of war and people were just happy to have their houses and land back so they could continue with their lives. My mother worked as a pharmacist in Jajce and my trips there once again became a part of my life. My brother had moved to Zagreb, Croatia where he could finish school and start his own life. I finished third grade in Sipovo and I thought it was the first of many school years to come, however, another large change was about to consume my life.

My parents realized that the situation was not improving and decided it was time to take our lives across the ocean to the United States. This was not a change I had expected and it has probably had the most impact on my life. We first moved to Tucson, Arizona in the year 2000. Tucson was not only a different city but both a different climate and temperature. We were not accustomed to the blazing temperatures. This extreme heat was unbearable and I only completed fourth grade in Tucson. After one year in Tucson, we decided that it was time to move to a more suitable climate. My parents had friends in Detroit and decided that this would be the easiest move and it would make us closer to home. We moved to Shelby Township and it had proven to be the most consistent move for us, considering we still live here now.

I attended Roberts Elementary where I not only continued my education, but also fell in love with the game of basketball. From that point on, it has been a huge part of my life. Little did I know, basketball would later decide where I went to college. After Roberts Elementary, I went to Malow Junior High where I joined my first organized basketball team. This opportunity later allowed me to join the Varsity team of Eisenhower High School as a sophomore. I enjoyed all of my schools and I was one of few people who were sad to leave high school. It was a great experience and I will always look at it as one of the best times of my life. Playing basketball has opened many doors for me. It has allowed me the chance to get scouted and be offered a scholarship to Madonna University where I hope to further both my academic and athletic career.