Feature: A View from Inside Kosovo
As the latest crisis spot in the Balkans, Kosovo put a global focus on the brutal suppression of ethnic Albanian rebels. After 11 weeks of NATO airstrikes beginning late March 1999, Yugoslavian strongman Slobodan Milosevic capitulated, and a NATO peacekeeping force was allowed into Kosovo. As more than 800,000 refugees proceeded to return home, evidence of mass killings and other atrocities began to surface. Against this background, a retired military bridgadier general gives an inside view of the current crisis in Kosovo, including an account of the life of more than 6,000 American troops stationed there as 'peacekeepers.' –Editor.
I went down in Kosovo. But U.S. Army medics rescued me. And Hungarian military physicians repaired me. No, this didn't happen during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air war against Yugoslavia. It was three months later during a visit to a civilian hospital—on assignment for the weekly international Journal Of The American Medical Association (JAMA)—with two U.S. Army physician-generals and their armed military escort.
When I lost my footing in that damaged and looted Kosovo building, it instantly became apparent that several pounds of body armor do not help in regaining your balance or cover those parts of your body apt to hit the ground first and hardest. What was less apparent to the U.S. Army troops protecting us was whether I'd been shot. Their restrained response (although some dropped to one knee and cocked their weapons) eliminated the likelihood that I would survive the fall only to die from a ricocheting bullet. As they say, worse than the bullet with your name on it is the one addressed to whom it may concern . . . This accident in a sense summarizes the situation in much of the Balkans, at least in my hasty judgment.
I've visited the region four times with various surgeons general—a traveling companion with three stars on his shoulders opens a lot of doors—to report on military medicine for JAMA. In much of this region, especially Kosovo, nothing is on sure footing. Contending factions continue to nurse their grievances, individuals and some communities struggle physically and politically to rebuild, unmarked mine fields and people with access to weapons threaten the unwary, and peacekeeping is a frustrating and apparently never-ending (or at least not for much longer than most governments like to admit) process.
For the U.S. military, this is not the stuff of recruiting literature. With the help of civilian contractors, the U.S. military is working long and hard to make the troops as comfortable as possible, although comfort is not a word that comes quickly to mind in connection with duty 'down range,' as GIs call it. Most successful has been the effort to get the troops out of tents where they've spent many a cold night with at least one tentmate watching to make sure that a heater doesn't ignite the canvas. Most now are in wooden or prefabricated structures or refurbished Yugoslavian army barracks that are sterile but do provide four walls and a ceiling against the winter weather.
Plank sidewalks bridge the mud in many places. But showers can be brisk and not always right next door, while other lavatory facilities afford only minimal privacy. On the other hand, the food is good, plentiful, varied, free, and available in the dining halls at all hours of the day and night. E-mail, phone lines, recreational facilities, and off-duty educational opportunities also are provided. Still, the slightly more permanent nature of these facilities, including completion of a $600,000 hospital on Eagle Base near Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina and similar physical improvements at other U.S. bases, suggest that U.S. officials may be pondering exit strategy well into the next millennium.
Many of the American military members now serving in the Balkans have been deployed repeatedly for demanding and sometimes traumatic duties. Imagine uncovering a mass grave or standing between former neighbors who now want to get at each others' throats. Add to this the sometimes harsh weather, poor sanitation in many civilian areas, insects and snakes, diseases endemic to the region, and just getting used to being there. (Some newly-arrived troops usually experience upper respiratory infections early in their stay.)
Although they are very fit, these troops often must cope with day-long wear of 40 or more pounds of protective gear. (A 144-pound, 5-foot 11-inch, Michigan State graduate visitor is only too happy to have a soldier one-third his age lug his gear, boost him in and out of helicopters, help propel him up steep hills, and generally, although they are far too polite to say it to your face, 'try to keep the old guy from hurting himself.') Those troops who are issued weapons, and in the more threatening areas these include medics, must have guns and ammunition with them at all times, even when going to the bathroom.
Outside the U.S. bases' fences, we saw once again what this decade's wars of succession from the original Yugoslavia have cost the newly (or would-be) independent Balkan nations in disruption of daily life, economy, culture, education, health, and safety.
Kosovo differs from other areas in the region in that it still is part of Yugoslavia. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991, Macedonia in November 1991, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1992. Today, Yugoslavia consists of the republics of Montenegro (which tends to be pro-Western and which has proposed a loose two-state association instead of the present federation) and Serbia. Kosovo is the smaller of two provinces within the Republic of Serbia. U.S. forces have the southwest peacekeeping sector of Kosovo.
The 6300 U.S. troops there carry out more than 300 patrols a day. They may encounter arson, looting, even murder. It often is commented that there are few truly innocent persons among the civilian population. Serbs attempted the ethnic cleansing that brought on NATO's air war, while Kosovar Albanians now often want to exact revenge as well as to achieve independence from Yugoslavia. Caught in the middle are the peacekeeping forces. On the plus side, American troops at camps Bondsteel and Monteith, named for U.S. Medal of Honor recipients, in Kosovo as well as throughout the region receive excellent health care from military medical personnel. Medics devote any additional time and resources to civilians whose injuries or illnesses threaten life, limb, or eyesight. The military medical people in Kosovo are treating at least one civilian trauma patient a day on average, while trying to restore some civilian hospitals to near pre-war levels of service.
Major head injuries are referred to hospitals in Kosovo's provincial capital of Pristina or in Skopje, Macedonia. In Macedonia, U.S. Forces have Camp Able Sentry. Macedonia's entire air force—four helicopters—is based at the adjoining airport. U.S. Army helicopters, complete with rapid-fire gun operators scanning the terrain below from either side of the cabin, hug the steep hills as they fly in and out of neighboring Kosovo. From military helicopters flying over Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina, the actions of the warring factions in recent years are evident in large numbers of buildings without roofs or sometimes even walls. Not apparent are the land mines or booby traps that may be present to discourage the original residents from returning to rebuild.
On one of my earlier visits to Bosnia and Herzegovina, physicians told of one woman's being killed and another seriously injured when they stepped on a land mine just a short distance from one of the U.S. bases. In Croatia, to the north and west of Bosnia, officials say that one million land mines and other explosives await the unwary.