"When you come back from a mission, of course you go through various examinations. And part of the pre-departure and post-departure examinations are psychological tests or an interview with a psychologist. When we were talking, at the end of that interview he says, 'Colleague, I feel like I need a psychiatrist, not you.' You can't forget that, because you can't. I've detached myself from it. The story is running beside me. The Dan who lived through it is standing next to me, but the Dan who is alive today is me. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but either way, it doesn´t keep me awake at night. But I know I can't forget it, because you can't forget evil, even if it sounds like a cliché. You always have to remember that it's there. I always say I know what death smells like. You know how to talk to it or how to deal with it."
"I once took only sandals, shorts and a T-shirt, a pistol in my backpack and went to walk through Baghdad outside the green zone, which was basically the only safe place. My colleagues told me I wouldn't be coming back. But I did come back. And I saw the city for what it is. Nothing happened to me. I sat on the street with people, ate with people. They knew very well that I was not theirs, because if you look at me, I guess I can hardly claim to be Iraqi. Nothing really happened to me. They even showed me the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where there's a famous photo of Saddam Hussein with a Cezeta rifle in the stands where the parades were held, etc. So there I stood everywhere. I was also far away in the city where the former government quarters were. You see, it must have been a wonderful city, as the locals confirmed. It's interesting that the young people especially spoke good English and were willing to describe what happened there."
"As we were patrolling Sekyrača, people from Sekyrača told us that in one village, Podujevë, where we were also working, there was an old teacher whose house they had destroyed, cutting down all the trees that had been there for centuries. And I went to Medveđe, which was in what was then Serbia, just below Sekyrača, to get her. I brought her secretly to that village, and she cried to me there because she saw the way her life had been destroyed. The house was demolished, three huge oak trees were cut down - on purpose. These are quite powerful moments when you have a seventy-year-old lady crying over the fact that everything she had experienced was destroyed. And there were more situations like that."
Daniel Struž was born on 25 October 1968 in Opava. He spent his childhood partly in Háj in Silesia and in Ostrava. He graduated from grammar school in Ostrava-Poruba. To the surprise of his relatives, after graduation he applied to the Military University of Land Forces, in the field of all-military team. In 1991, he successfully graduated from the school and obtained the degree of engineer in economics. During his career in the army, he completed four foreign missions. In 2001 he served in the KFOR mission in Kosovo and in 2002 in the SFOR II mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both missions he served as a representative of the Civil-Military Cooperation Unit. After returning from Bosnia and Herzegovina, he served as Deputy Director of the Civil-Military Cooperation and Psychological Operations Office (CIMIC/PSYOPS), then moved to Military Intelligence. In 2007, he participated in the mission in Iraq as a military intelligence officer. Upon his return, he trained for a mission in Afghanistan where he was part of the Allied Command Counterintelligence (ACCI) team. He left for the mission in early 2008. He was awarded The Army Commendation Medal for his service in Afghanistan. After a successful career in the army, he found employment at Czech Armaments, where he eventually worked his way up to product director. Today he lives in Řečkovice and holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Brno Waterworks and Sewerage. He is also active in politics.
