The two former Army Rangers had worked together for about a month in fall 2003 for Vinnell, a company with a contract to train Iraqi soldiers. Zovko wanted the Iraqis to be able to control their own country, so he drove them hard.

On one 12-mile march, "the Iraqis were dropping like flies. Jerry would pick up their packs, trying to embarrass them," co-worker Bob Coleman said. "That works in America, but it didn't work with the Iraqis."

Zovko always had a relentless drive. When he joined the Army in 1991, he was assigned to the 82nd Military Police at Fort Bragg, N.C. MPs almost never train as Army Rangers: Police maintain order; the Rangers are trained to break things. Zovko talked his way into Ranger training and was the rare MP with a Ranger tab on his uniform.

Zovko itched to go to Bosnia in late 1995, when U.S. troops were to help maintain the uneasy truce brokered at the Dayton peace accords. Zovko's unit wasn't going. That didn't stop him from swinging an assignment there.

"He'd do things his own way, and the lieutenants and sergeants would want to boot him out," said Howard Hadfield, a friend from his military police platoon. "He played politics and got people to do what he wanted."

Born in a blue-collar Cleveland neighborhood, Jerko (YAIR-ko) Gerald Zovko -- Jerry -- was a soldier who questioned authority; a gun for hire and an idealist; a gregarious and private man; a loyal but secretive friend.

The Vinnell contract collapsed when many Iraqis abandoned the training. But Zovko and Batalona soon would work together again.

Rust Belt roots

Zovko was a Croatian-American and a son of the Rust Belt. His parents separately escaped the Iron Curtain: his father, Jozo, from a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, his mother, Danica, from a small city in Croatia.

They met in front of the Croatian Soccer Club at St. Clair Avenue and East 55th Street in Cleveland, where tool-and-die factories and cramped frame houses attracted thousands fleeing from what was then Yugoslavia. Jerry was born three years to the day after Danica Zovko landed in the United States.

Jerry and his brother, Tom, grew up in a home that enshrined love of family, the Catholic Church, Croatia, American democracy and anti-Communism.

The Zovkos started a body shop and worked long hours, Jozo with the cars, Danica with the books. Jerry and Tom would beg to help; let us wash the cars, please. They were always turned down.

"We were afraid they would like it," Danica Zovko said.

The business grew, and the family moved to a tiny brick home in Euclid, home to the Polka Hall of Fame and a host of hyphenated Americans: Hungarian-, Slovenian-, Italian-, Polish- and Serbian-.

Zovko learned English at St. Christine's elementary school. He played soldiers with his brother and friends, and went to summer camp with other Croatian-Americans. A history of the post-World War II slaughter of Croats by Tito's partisans was always on his nightstand. He was a decent student, an average soccer player with skills but no speed.

Croatian nationalism

Zovko's life turned in 1991. He asked to visit his relatives in Croatia for a high school graduation present, his first visit as an adult. On June 25, 1991, the family stepped off a plane into what seemed like a patriotic dream. As they rode through the ancient city of Dubrovnik, the streets were thick with people waving red, white and blue flags with the red-checkered Croatian coat of arms. Croatia had declared independence from Yugoslavia that day.

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