Mercenary and Writer
After his service in the Finnish Army, in 1993 Casagrande volunteered for the Bosnian Croat Defence Forces HVO. He wrote under name Luca Moconesi a controversial book Mostarin tien liftarit / Hitchhikers on the Road to Mostar (WSOY 1997) about his experiences in the Bosnian Civil War. Based on descriptions of war crimes committed by the main character in the autobiographical book, he came under suspicion as a possible war criminal. As a defence, he later stated that the book was in fact a work of fiction.
Personally Casagrande shows zero tolerance to any war crimes what so ever. "Those troops know that they are doing wrong. This is the very opposite of constructive collectivity and group spirit. Anybody can understand that it is by no measures militarily efficient to go kicking the doors of an old peoples home." Casagrande has been lecturing in the National Defence University of Finland since 2006 on courses of strategy and leadership.
Read more about this topic: Marco Casagrande
Famous quotes containing the words mercenary and/or writer:
“These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“The purifying, healing influence of literature, the dissipating of passions by knowledge and the written word, literature as the path to understanding, forgiveness and love, the redeeming might of the word, the literary spirit as the noblest manifestation of the spirit of man, the writer as perfected type, as saint.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)