Croatian War of Independence
Gotovina returned to Croatia in 1991 when the Croatian War of Independence was beginning, and enlisted in the Croatian National Guard (ZNG), the first organized military body of what would become the Croatian Army. He was an efficient commander and had the advantage – shared by relatively few other Croatian soldiers – of combat experience. He fought in western Slavonia: in Novska and Nova Gradiška, attached to the 1st Guards Brigade. He soon caught the attention of his superiors, and when the Croatian Army was established as such in 1992, Gotovina was promoted to Colonel. As a colonel he was, along with Janko Bobetko and Anto Roso one of the main organizers of Operation Maslenica, which restored Croatia's territorial continuity in Dalmatia.
By 1994 he had risen to the rank of major-general and, as a general-pukovnik and commanding officer of the Split military district he organized key military operations: the defense of Livno and Tomislavgrad from the troops of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić, and the ten-month war of attrition which broke the Serb defenses in the Plain of Livno, the Dinara Ridge and the Šator mountain. He led the conquest of Glamoč and Bosansko Grahovo (Operation Summer '95), which enabled him to close from the east the encirclement of Knin, the "capital" of the self-proclaimed "Republic of the Serb Krajina" (RSK). This ensured the conditions for the rapid success of Operation Oluja ("Storm") of 4–6 August 1995, in the course of which forces under his command captured Knin.
Gotovina was then immediately put in charge of the combined forces of the Croatian Army (Hrvatska Vojska or HV) and the Croatian Defense Council in Bosnia (Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane or HVO) in Operation Mistral, which defeated the army of the Bosnian Serbs and led the Croatian army, together with the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina, within 23 kilometres of Banja Luka and was only stopped under American pressure. His success is why he is seen as a hero by many Croats.
Read more about this topic: Ante Gotovina
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“Hail, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!
Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause,
Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause,
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Let independence be our boast,
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—Joseph Hopkinson (1770–1842)