Newsweek
March 6, 2000
'Hold Your Line! Hold Your Fire!'
U.S. troops face angry crowds-and nagging doubts
By Rod Nordland
It started with Serbs spitting at the Americans. Soldiers of the
82d
Airborne Division were emerging from a building in Mitrovica,
Kosovo,
that they'd just searched for weapons. A crowd gathered. "Come
on,
shoot me, you cowards," one Serbian man shouted, baring his
chest.
"You can't bomb us now," another sneered. Capt. Mark Pratt
ordered
the 132 men of his Bravo Company to stand shoulder to shoulder.
"Hold
your line, Joes," he and his noncoms shouted. That was easy
enough.
"And hold your fire!" That was harder.
"All we could do is stand there and take it," said Specialist
David
Arsen, 24, of Tacoma, Wash.-even when a snowball barrage gave
way to
trash, rocks and paving stones. A brick hit machine-gunner
Michael
Shane Price, 29, in the face and knocked him, dazed, out of his
turret. He
was one of two men treated by medics; many others had cuts and
bruises.
"It could have gone either way," said Pratt. And that's what
made
Mitrovica so frightening. A year after the start of the war in
Kosovo, the province remains a place that is at best in a state
of
cold peace. Communal relations between Albanians and those few
Serbs
who remain are
murderous. Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic, still in Belgrade,
is
willing and able to foment trouble in Kosovo. NATO's commitment
to the
peacekeeping mission is halfhearted. There are meant to be
49,000
troops in Kosovo; at present just 37,000 are there, and when
NATO
Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark called for urgent
reinforcements
last week, NATO's North Atlantic Council turned him down. It's
easy
to see how a spark could ignite a real fire, how a humanitarian
intervention could turn into a military disaster.
For the Americans, whose Kosovo Protection Force (KFOR)
contingent of
5,500 is the largest of any nation, the workload is daunting.
U.S.
troops mount an average of more than 300 patrols a day-the bulk
of
them on foot, and many of them 12 to 14 hours long. They don't
normally work in volatile Mitrovica, and KFOR quickly pulled the
82d
out of there last week. But even in their own sector, the
southeast
of Kosovo, it's hardly quiet. Consider Novo Brdo, where the 63d
Armored keeps the peace among snow-covered mountain villages: in
the
last two weeks an elderly Serb was murdered, a village of 15
families
was robbed and chased away and an apartment building was torched
next
to the American base. ''It's been real slow lately," says the
company's First Sgt. Ernest Roth, a veteran of Somalia and
Bosnia.
"Right now Kosovo is off the radar screen back home, but they
kill 15
or 20 Americans and it could change everything."
No one rules that out. So far only one U.S. soldier has been
killed
in hostile action, an American liaison officer blown up by a
remote-
controlled land mine in the Russian sector last December. Some
of the
U.S. soldiers think the way to deter further attacks is to get
tough
with all the locals. The U.S. Army is investigating complaints
that
some 82d Airborne troopers were routinely roughing up Albanians
in
Vitina,
where a soldier from the same unit has been charged with the sex
murder of an 11-year-old girl. At Gnjilane, many soldiers talk
about
how to
handle curfew violators: "Beat them up a little, and lock them
up,"
as one Pfc. put it.
"If we left, I'm convinced the Serbs would all be dead in a
week,"
says Capt. Brian Byers. "They're all [living] just a hand
grenade's
toss from
one another." In fact, grenades cost only about $7.50 apiece in
Kosovo. Easier than a gun to hide, they've become the terror
weapon
of choice,
tossed into Serb homes almost nightly in Gnjilane.
Usually KFOR soldiers don't catch the terrorists. When they do,
they're quickly released. Kosovo still doesn't have a judicial
system, and its
few prisons are overcrowded. Even an Albanian curfew breaker who
tried to pull a pistol on American soldiers was back on the
street
last
week.
American soldiers find some consolation counting the days until
they
can get out themselves. At the Bravo Company command hut in Camp
Monteith near Gnjilane last Thursday, the situation board toted
up
the scheduled R&Rs (none), patrols (10) and, up top where no one
can
miss it, the days left in their tour: "116."
Other Americans will replace them. Clinton administration
officials
don't expect a resolution of the Serbian province's status for
10 to
20 years.
They say U.S. pullouts won't be possible unless Milosevic
falls-if he
ever does. Most peacekeeping operations assume both sides have
agreed
on a peace plan. In Kosovo, the Serbs have not, and the
Albanians are
at odds with each other. KFOR must post 24-hour sentries at the
homes
of Serbs in Albanian neighborhoods, escort their children to
school
and even take their parents out shopping-when they're not
busting
them for trying to kill one another. "The U.S. Army, your
soldier on
the beat," cracks paratrooper Jim Keaton of Kansas, who was hit
by a
Serb-thrown rock last week. Like many others who have stepped in
to
break up someone else's fight, he learned that neither side is
likely
to be grateful.
With John Barry in Washington
--------------------
Newsweek
March 6, 2000
<bold><bigger>'Hold Your Line! Hold Your Fire!'
</bigger></bold>U.S. troops face angry crowds-and nagging doubts
By Rod Nordland
It started with Serbs spitting at the Americans. Soldiers of the
82d
Airborne Division were emerging from a building in Mitrovica,
Kosovo,
that they'd just searched for weapons. A crowd gathered. "Come
on,
shoot me, you cowards," one Serbian man shouted, baring his
chest. "You
can't bomb us now," another sneered. Capt. Mark Pratt ordered
the 132
men of his Bravo Company to stand shoulder to shoulder. "Hold
your
line, Joes," he and his noncoms shouted. That was easy enough.
"And
hold your fire!" That was harder.
"All we could do is stand there and take it," said Specialist
David
Arsen, 24, of Tacoma, Wash.-even when a snowball barrage gave
way to
trash, rocks and paving stones. A brick hit machine-gunner
Michael
Shane Price, 29, in the face and knocked him, dazed, out of his
turret.
He
was one of two men treated by medics; many others had cuts and
bruises.
"It could have gone either way," said Pratt. And that's what
made
Mitrovica so frightening. A year after the start of the war in
Kosovo,
the province remains a place that is at best in a state of cold
peace.
Communal relations between Albanians and those few Serbs who
remain
are
murderous. Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic, still in Belgrade,
is
willing and able to foment trouble in Kosovo. NATO's commitment
to the
peacekeeping mission is halfhearted. There are meant to be
49,000
troops in Kosovo; at present just 37,000 are there, and when
NATO
Supreme Commander Gen. Wesley Clark called for urgent
reinforcements
last week, NATO's North Atlantic Council turned him down. It's
easy to
see how a spark could ignite a real fire, how a humanitarian
intervention could turn into a military disaster.
For the Americans, whose Kosovo Protection Force (KFOR)
contingent of
5,500 is the largest of any nation, the workload is daunting.
U.S.
troops mount an average of more than 300 patrols a day-the bulk
of them
on foot, and many of them 12 to 14 hours long. They don't
normally work
in volatile Mitrovica, and KFOR quickly pulled the 82d out of
there
last week. But even in their own sector, the southeast of
Kosovo, it's
hardly quiet. Consider Novo Brdo, where the 63d Armored keeps
the peace
among snow-covered mountain villages: in the last two weeks an
elderly
Serb was murdered, a village of 15 families was robbed and
chased away
and an apartment building was torched next to the American base.
''It's
been real slow lately," says the company's First Sgt. Ernest
Roth, a
veteran of Somalia and Bosnia. "Right now Kosovo is off the
radar
screen back home, but they kill 15 or 20 Americans and it could
change
everything."
No one rules that out. So far only one U.S. soldier has been
killed in
hostile action, an American liaison officer blown up by a
remote-
controlled land mine in the Russian sector last December. Some
of the
U.S. soldiers think the way to deter further attacks is to get
tough
with all the locals. The U.S. Army is investigating complaints
that
some 82d Airborne troopers were routinely roughing up Albanians
in
Vitina,
where a soldier from the same unit has been charged with the sex
murder
of an 11-year-old girl. At Gnjilane, many soldiers talk about
how to
handle curfew violators: "Beat them up a little, and lock them
up," as
one Pfc. put it.
"If we left, I'm convinced the Serbs would all be dead in a
week," says
Capt. Brian Byers. "They're all [living] just a hand grenade's
toss
from
one another." In fact, grenades cost only about $7.50 apiece in
Kosovo.
Easier than a gun to hide, they've become the terror weapon of
choice,
tossed into Serb homes almost nightly in Gnjilane.
Usually KFOR soldiers don't catch the terrorists. When they do,
they're
quickly released. Kosovo still doesn't have a judicial system,
and its
few prisons are overcrowded. Even an Albanian curfew breaker who
tried
to pull a pistol on American soldiers was back on the street
last
week.
American soldiers find some consolation counting the days until
they
can get out themselves. At the Bravo Company command hut in Camp
Monteith near Gnjilane last Thursday, the situation board toted
up the
scheduled R&Rs (none), patrols (10) and, up top where no one can
miss
it, the days left in their tour: "116."
Other Americans will replace them. Clinton administration
officials
don't expect a resolution of the Serbian province's status for
10 to 20
years.
They say U.S. pullouts won't be possible unless Milosevic
falls-if he
ever does. Most peacekeeping operations assume both sides have
agreed
on a peace plan. In Kosovo, the Serbs have not, and the
Albanians are
at odds with each other. KFOR must post 24-hour sentries at the
homes
of Serbs in Albanian neighborhoods, escort their children to
school and
even take their parents out shopping-when they're not busting
them for
trying to kill one another. "The U.S. Army, your soldier on the
beat,"
cracks paratrooper Jim Keaton of Kansas, who was hit by a
Serb-thrown
rock last week. Like many others who have stepped in to break up
someone else's fight, he learned that neither side is likely to
be
grateful.
With John Barry in Washington
|
