
Ruza Markovic had dreamt of and studied for a career in journalism — when war intervened to change the trajectory of her life. While her family had emigrated to the U.S. from their native Yugoslavia when she was just 4, Markovic didn’t think twice when she was asked to return to her homeland in the early ’90s as a communications liaison to the teetering government while political unrest and then war-ravaged the Balkans.