I wanted to ask him, “Where? Shed by whom?”

I’d like to ask a similar question to the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings: “What did Americans do to you, other than give you refuge?”

Prior to 9/11, my only combat experience had come in missions to protect Muslims. In September of 2001, the U.S. was not at war anywhere. But we had recently worked to stop the bleeding in one place truly reddened by Muslim blood–the Balkans. My squadron mates and I flew airlift missions to Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, and those experiences inspired my upcoming novel set in the region, The Warriors.

As the former Yugoslavia tore itself apart, Serb nationalists launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Muslims. It’s estimated that more than 100,000 people died in Bosnia alone, and this figure does not include deaths in Kosovo, Croatia, and other breakaway republics.

Who ended that killing spree? NATO, led by U.S. forces. Perhaps we should have done more sooner, but at the very least the U.S. prevented worse tragedy.

The Boston Marathon attacks appear to be another case of illogical blame placed on the U.S. for crimes against Muslims committed by other parties in other places. The suspects—one dead and one hospitalized—have roots in the troubled Russian state of Chechnya.

Ironically, the men suspected of killing and maiming our fellow citizens shared historic ties with other Eastern European Muslims whom the U.S. has defended at no small cost.

Perhaps the suspects didn’t realize America pressured Russia over human rights violations in Chechnya. U.S. efforts, however feeble, worked to mitigate bloodshed there, not abet it. Our diplomatic overtures in the Caucasus and military operations in the Balkans go back to when the Boston bomber suspects were children.

No cause justifies a deliberate strike at civilians, but an attack on Americans allegedly by these two brothers seems especially nonsensical. One can’t help but wonder how much of their own larger history they knew.

But then, illogic has always marked the global jihadist movement and its hangers-on. Again, note that in September of 2001, the U.S. was at peace. The withdrawal of the American military presence from the Arabian Peninsula—a key al Qaeda issue at the time—was well under way. The U.S. forces that did remain were enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from slaughtering Shiite Muslims.

Most people have a natural inclination to seek cause and effect, to impose order on the events they witness. But to look for any reasoning—even twisted reasoning—in the Boston Marathon bombings is a waste of time

This point becomes clearer when we look at our own domestic terrorists. Did Timothy McVeigh have any legitimate grievance when he bombed the Oklahoma City federal building? Do Klansmen or neo-Nazis communicate any message we should listen to? Of course not.

So why should we suppose that a foreign-born terrorist is any smarter, any better informed, or any more justified in his actions than an ignorant Klansman? They all bear the same trait: a lack of any reasoning that makes sense.

In the aftermath of this—or any—terrorist attack, some might ask, “What did we do to bring this on?” The very question gives the bombers more credit than they deserve.

Author Tom Young in the flight engineer’s seat of a C-130 on an airlift mission over the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Twenty years ago, Sarajevo burned. From 1992 to 1995, the Bosnian capital endured one of the worst sieges of modern warfare.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of other significant events from the Bosnian war, as well. In 1993, the United Nations declared a number of “safe areas,” including the town of Srebrenica. Two years later, thousands of Muslim men and boys died at Srebrenica in the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II. The siege of the city of Mostar, as well as mass murder in the Lašva Valley, both took place in 1993.

In Tom Young’s new military adventure novel THE WARRIORS, which Putnam will publish on July 11 ($26.95), Air Force officer Michael Parson faces a war criminal who wants to finish what he helped start during that earlier conflict. Wealthy arms dealer Viktor Dušić hopes to use a terrorist attack as the match to reignite the flames that ravaged that part of the world two decades ago.

Tom Young personally witnessed that conflict by taking on two vastly different roles—one of them by reporting on the conflict through the media, and the other by serving in the American military. “I saw the wars in the former Yugoslavia from two different perspectives,” Young recalls. “First as a journalist, and then as a military flier.”

In Washington, DC, Young helped coordinate coverage of the Balkan wars as a producer, editor, and newsroom supervisor for the broadcast division of the Associated Press. As a flight engineer with the Air National Guard, he flew airlift missions in Bosnia and Kosovo on C-130 Hercules cargo planes. “I found it hard to watch Yugoslavia tear itself apart while the world stood by,” Young now says.

In his Afterword to THE WARRIORS, Tom Young comments, “Those Air National Guard missions seemed otherworldly, flying relief supplies to a region where an ethnic group had been targeted for extinction. This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. After the Holocaust, the world had said Never Again. But it turned out the world didn’t really mean it.”

NATO forces eventually intervened, but not before thousands lost their lives.

Flashbacks in THE WARRIORS recreate scenes drawn from 1990s headlines, including one of the era’s most poignant stories–the murder of “The Bosnian Romeo and Juliet.” On May 19, 1993, Admira Ismic and Bosko Brkic were shot to death as they attempted to flee over the Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo. According to reports, Ismic and Brkic had dated for years, and they were buried together. She was a Muslim; he was a Christian.

Iraq and Afghanistan have since eclipsed the Bosnian war in the American consciousness. “A lot of people don’t remember that about a hundred thousand people died in Bosnia,” Young notes.

In his Afterword, Young also writes, “We owe those dead, some of whom rest in mass graves, remembrance. Yet the conflict in the former Yugoslavia has become a forgotten war. Perhaps this novel offers a small reminder.”

For further information about THE WARRIORS, or to arrange an interview with Tom Young, please contact:

Michael Barson

Senior Executive of Publicity

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

#212-366-2547

Michael.barson@us.penguingroup.com

Just a few miles from Saddam International Airport–it has yet to be renamed–a burst of tracer fire comes up off the left wing. Needles spearing up into the night. Maybe a half mile out, not close enough to threaten. You call out tracers at nine o’clock, but you don’t need to break off course. Hmm. Weird.

Next night, something similar. Over the outskirts of Baghdad, antiaircraft artillery blossoms a thousand yards out at two o’clock. Whatever.

And on the next mission it happens again. This time, a rocket-propelled grenade arcs up way in front of you, hits nothing, winks out like a cigarette butt tossed away. You ask your buddies, “What are those knuckleheads shooting at? There’s nothing out there.”

Then it dawns on you. You’re flying a blacked-out airplane. The bad guys can’t see you, but they can hear you. They’re firing up at the noise. Those knuckleheads are shooting at YOU.

Thanks to the United States Marine Corps for help with researching a future novel. They graciously allowed me to observe a Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRX) at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. This building simulates an American embassy at an overseas hotspot, where a Marine Corps Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team provides protection.

Japanese editions of THE MULLAH’S STORM and SILENT ENEMY.

Scenes from a recent Air National Guard deployment: This is a mural painted on a concrete barrier at an air base in Afghanistan.

(My segment begins about forty minutes into the audio file. You can slide the play bar to the right to skip ahead.)