War Stories - Intro

I have a vast assortment of interesting and unique photos from the months that I spent in Sarajevo as part of the NATO-led peace Implementation Force (IFOR) back in 1995-1996. I have wanted to post them online since I started blogging (hence the “War Stories” category) but have not had the time. Rather than upload them all at once, every so often I will take a break from my day-to-day ramblings, and I will post a few pics at a time, with an accompanying story. The stories will not have any linear narrative flow, but will be random tidbits and observations that I will loosely tie to the photos.

Operation Joint Endeavor has become somewhat of a historical footnote, due, in part, to the comparatively minimal casualties (thank God) and overall success of the mission; however, for the deployed soldiers and for the residents of the former Yugoslavia, it was a significant, life-altering event. We shape history by the stories we tell, and it is my hope that my stories are informative and entertaining.

It was around this time nine years ago that members of my unit first heard rumblings that the latest peace agreement was the real thing after a seemingly endless string of ignored treaties and failed cease fires. The warring parties hammered out these accords and initialed them in Dayton, Ohio, of all places, on November 21. Our superiors told us to get our affairs in order because we would not be spending Christmas in North Carolina; we left for Stuttgart via commercial airliner on December 11 (no drafty, noisy C-141 for us special ops types). I spent the holidays at Panzer Kaserne (“Tank Base”) in Böblingen, Germany, and didn’t get to fly into Bosnia until a month later.

Because we were a psychological operations (propaganda) unit, our primary mission was to get the word out that NATO, unlike the impotent United Nations Protection Force, would respond to any hostility with proportional retaliation. It was also our responsibility to explain the mind-numbing, garrulous legalese of the peace accords to a confused, paranoid, war-weary populace. Our secondary mission was to support the United Nations Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), with campaigns such as mine awareness, war criminal “wanted posters,” etc.

In the photo above, a handsome young soldier and future blogger, clad in woodland camo body armor and Kevlar helmet, pretends to hand out mine awareness leaflets to a young resident of Sarajevo who agreed to pose for our photo. Unlike our compatriots stationed up north in Tuzla, we never wore our body armor around town because it tended to alienate the populace, and we, of course, were there to win their hearts and minds. We staged this shot as a “dog and pony show” for our stateside commanders.