The Herald from Jasper, Indiana • 2

Page 2 The Herald, Saturday, January 11, 1997 Prisoners of Peace dows to open. It did have an abundance of duct tape wrapped around parts that are normally secured by nuts and bolts. I wondered if our equipment and personal gear could slip through the holes in the cargo bay floor. From Hungary through Croatia we were supposed to wear our uniforms, but could lay aside the cumbersome flak vest and web gear (the pistol belt and suspenders where a soldier's gear is carried). I took off my jacket, and dropped my boots the moment took well over two hours.

There were no stops. A young soldier had to relieve himself. He was not embarrassed by this biological necessity. He hunkered down in the rear of the bus and used a discarded water bottle. I glanced at him not with disdain, but remote disinterest.

I was hot, dirty and tired and reminded that life in the military isn't, always romantic, shiny and new the way Hollywood and recruiting posters want us to believe; or the way we portray ourselves back home at the The colonel he is a lieutenant colonel but 'light birds' are always called colonel was sitting in a nearby chair. The major stood, leaning against the wall. We were on the porch of Building 1 where our operations center was located. The building was next to the pedestrian gate. We watched as the civilian employees of Base Camp Eagle walked toward the gate on the way home.

"Ah, our first Saturday night in Bosnia," the colonel said. "Boy, I hope this continued After work, everyone writes a report about the new schedule and gives it to the boss. Every report has this as an opening statement: "What moron choreographed this particular Goat Rodeo?" Except the guy with the keys. He writes that everything was swell. His will be the only report read.

He gets promoted. In the military there is a major exception: When the U.S. Army goes to war the tasks at hand are accomplished with appreciably won't be as exciting as our first Friday night," I said. "Yeah, welcome to Tuzla," the major said. "Where the rubber hits the road." Silently we watched the civilians leave.

Sometimes we would wave The civilians would reciprocate. Until it got too chilly, and the sun began to set around 4:30 p.m., I would spend every night watching the people walk out the gate. And every morning I would watch them walk in. I would sit in the folding chair and smoke cigars or chew tobacco and watch. I drank coffee or water.

And I would wonder where all the people went to at night, and where they came from in the morning. That's what I did to keep the peace. It worked. Not once did I witness a istf ight on the street in front of Building 1. There were also some army chores to accomplish.

Some days I was very busy doing what a Military Police more efficiency. If the guy with the key isn't on time some sergeant kicks down the door and passes out the ammunition, or food, or blankets. In Bosnia, I learned, the guy with the keys was run out of town long before we got there. As we prepared to deploy for The Balkans in support of Operation Joint Endeavor last spring for we knew of the tour five months in advance we dealt with the peace time military We were in a mission state of mind. Alas, if the monumental could be trivialized, it was.

If the mundane could become a major obstacle, it did. While more than half of us had spent full-time hitches in one of the four military branches, this reacquaintance with the cumbersome bureaucratic machinery was a pendulum swinging from frustration to amusement. Or so I thought. Despite a five-month flurry of contradictory directives and administrative mazes that originated somewhere in our chain of command a place I call the Puzzle Palace the 324th Mili JSm Just south of Brcko on the Sava River is a strip of real estate the GI's tagged Destruction Alley. Houses by the hundreds were destroyed by small arms fire, tanks, or simply set ablaze as their inhabitants fled the approaching armies.

This kind of destruction was common throughout Bosnia, though the immediate area around Base Camp Eagle was left relatively untouched by the four-year war. Below, Tent City 2 is one of several areas where soldiers are billeted. When it rained, the only dry place to walk was the walk-way in front of of the line of tents. Operations Sergeant does. Some days most days I was not.

We've been asked I have dozens of times since we returned on Thanksgiving Day: "How was it?" That's the question. How was what? That's what I ask myself in return. My responses have been inadequate; fumbling with the adjectives "interesting," "different." I don't know what to say. Would anyone understand that I sat and watched? There is nothing monosyllabic about Bosnia, or spending a tour of duty there. Bosnia is a beautiful place.

The countryside is breathtaking with its rugged hills, and wide open valleys dissected by fence rows and rocky streams. The colors are bright, alive and vibrant. It reminds me of southern Indiana, I wrote; farm fields rich in corn and wheat, large gardens behind nearly every house in every village I was able to visit or pass through. Cattle are led to graze each day. Leathered, weathered, old men with crooked backs or young boys wearing Chicago Bulls' T-shirts and riding their bicycles herd the family cow, sometimes two of them, down the roads to pasture Sheep and goats are on leashes.

And everywhere livestock is haltered and staked in front yards or along ditches where they pull at the green blades of grass and do not care about the war that led to our peacekeeping efforts. Each morning the Muslims would pray. I would listen to the soothing sounds echo from the minaret that was about half a mile distant. The refrains were musical and hypnotic. I could hear them best at 5 a.m., before the army camp began to stir and fill the day with its noises.

In the cities and villages were dozens of fruit and vegetable stands making good use of the plum and apple trees that seem to grow on every inch of available ground. Blackberry bushes by the thousands line the country roads. Our chowhall was always well stocked with the largest and sweetest grapes I had ever seen or tasted. And surely in Bosnia do mothers and fathers love their children and want for them a better, easier life; in Bosnia the quest for the American Dream lives on the continent of the dream's birth. Bosnia wasn't so bad and one day I hope to return, as a civilian.

But I will cringe at the offer to spend another tour there in uniform. The feeling has nothing to do with the tary Police Detachment, Prisoner of War Information Center, was ready to leave when June 26 rolled around. That's because we didn't wait for the guy with the keys. We kicked the door off its hinges. We worked hard and we worked as a team.

We were high speed. We were low drag. That comradeship is my defining moment of the tour in Bosnia, it was how I got there, who I went with, and who led me that mattered to me as a career soldier. Everything else mattered to me as a man, a human being. We've been home from Bosnia since Thanksgiving Day, and I was released from active duty a few days later.

This is what I saw: From the diary on July 29, 1996, in Taszar, Hungary "Down Range" is the catch phrase for The Balkans. This morning LTC Weikert, Sgt Moore, PFC Small and I will go down range. We are the advance party Tonight we'll he sleeping in Bosnia. Welcome to Bosnia We crossed into Bosnia in the early evening hours of July 29 at a city on the Sava River called Brcko (brish-ka). The first human being I saw was an old man.

He looked at the bus. I waved. He just looked at the bus; maybe he didn't see me. He was standing on the sidewalk. His eyes were hollow and sad.

Another man, this one much younger, passed behind him. The younger man was limping. There were bullet holes in the walls of the houses and stores. The splintered wood and twisted metal lay in heaps, the way corn shocks might dot on old farm field. A smokestack off to the right, someone announced, marked the site of a mass grave An old woman looked at the bus.

I didn't wave I watched her watching us. Some of the guys held their cameras to the windows and took photographs. I sat and watched Bosnia as the bus snaked its way from Brcko south to Tuzla, where our camp was in waiting. We had departed Hungary in mid-morning and by noon the temperature was in the 90s. The bus had no air conditioner or win family reunion, or the polite chit chat over cocktails.

The bus rattled on. Nightfall engulfed the road. And by the time we entered the gate at Base Camp Eagle I wondered: Is there really danger here from anything except heat injury? the diary, 1, Aug. From 1996, Bosnia Bosnia in Tuzla, is called The Box. The army It 's an army term.

the bus pulled out of the gate. But the lack of clothing made the ride no less uncomfortable. Seven hours later, at the Bosnian border, a young MP climbed on the bus and reminded us we would be making the rest of the trip wearing our helmets, jackets with the sleeves pulled down, and our flak vests. Our weapons should be standing by, he said. Bosnia was, and remains, a quasi combat zone.

No one shot at us, which was a good thing. The sergeant who was in charge of passing out the ammunition had fallen asleep and no one cared to wake him. The flak jacket I wore cut into my neck. My web belt wasn't fastened, though it was supposed to be. The barrel of my rifle was jammed between the seats just to the front of me, its butt on the floor; easy access to an empty weapon.

I thought about how much fun we had had during our 10-day stop at Fort Dix, N. and the 10 days in Wiesbaden, Germany. I remembered our tour down the Rhine, our visit to the boardwalk on the Jersey shore The ride through Bosnia continued in the bus with no breeze or air conditioning to cool us; musky, sour, putrid odors of sweating bodies fouled the stale air. The route from Brcko to Tuzla was about 40 miles and gives names to things; everything. I don't know who named this place The Box.

Whoever di under tands wha a box i's. A box is an object where one places something to keep it. And that's where we are: can- In a box from which we We live not escape. Welcome to Tuzla. at Base Camp Eagle.

Reflections in general terms I sat in a metal, folding chair, leaned back, placed my feet on the concrete flower pot and tugged hard on the cigar. I exhaled. The smoke was brown..