Congratulating Armed Forces members on their day, he recalled the lining up of the Croatian National Guard in Zagreb's Kranjčićeva Street 30 years ago, thanking everyone who was there as well as those who were not because, he said, at that time they were already risking their lives by defending Croatia.
Croatia is different, special
"This is your day. Croatia had a long, difficult, complicated path. We are different and we are special. We are the only country that had to go through a war after 1990 (...) and had to fight for what to others had come easy. That's why we are different," Milanović said.
That difference is also reflected in the fact that we are sometimes misunderstood and hurt, he added. "But we don't care. We, you especially, know that our path was right, just, and that we were guided by the fight for our state, for our historical right, which all peoples have."
We were not meant to achieve that peacefully, and without you none of that would have happened, without the few good and special people who gathered in Kranjčićeva Street or there were people were being killed, Milanović said, thanking those who fought in the 1991-95 Homeland War.
Those who are not among us would have been proud today to see that Croatia has come there where it always wished to be, that it's an independent country of the West, of the Western civilisation to which it belongs, with all due respect and understanding to those that are not, he said.
"That's Croatia, that's the Croatian goal, the Croatian path, and on that path we, that is you, are the winners. Once again, thank you for everything," he told war veterans.
"All those who did not come back, we will remember them forever," he said, adding "Long live our Croatia and may it be peaceful because it is protected by the Croatian Army."
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Defence Minister Mario Banožić also sent his congratulations, saying that the lining up in Zagreb's Kranjčićeva Street 30 years ago was a moment "when we realised that we were safe and that we would fight for our own freedom".
"Thirty years since the lining up, since the Homeland war, all our operations which have brought us to integrity can only remind us of the courage of you, Croatian veterans," the minister said.
You laid the foundations of today's Croatian Army, he underscored, adding that it is developing and modernising and is recognised in the world.
Talking about the modernisation of the army, he said that the government, with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković at its helm, was very much taking care of that.
Members of the Defence Ministry and the Croatian Armed Forces who were in the defence forces of the Republic of Croatia on 28 May 1991 were also present at the reception, and 366 of them were decorated for honorary and exemplary service by President Milanović.
Croatian military Chief-Of-Staff Admiral Robert Hranj, War Veterans' Affairs Minister Tomo Medved and Interior Minister Davor Božinović, military envoys in Croatia, members of veterans' associations and brigades from the Homeland War and family members of killed and missing veterans also attended the reception, among others.