Military

DATE=March 29, 2002

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-36120

TITLE=Peacekeeping in the Shadows

BYLINE=David Sommerstein

TELEPHONE=619-0112

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Neal Lavon

CONTENT=

INTRO: More than 3000 men and women from the Tenth Mountain Division based at Fort Drum near the town of Watertown in New York State are deployed in the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo. They're enforcing a delicate peace between Kosovar Serbs and Kosovar Albanians. And they're helping to rebuild a region torn apart by war. But for the individual soldier, the daily grind of peacekeeping can sometimes obscure the mission. Reporter David Sommerstein recently traveled to Kosovo with the U-S Army and has this report.

DS: In a guard tower overlooking snow-covered mountains, Private Vincent Egeland lifts a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He scans the valley below. The tree-lined slopes glow orange in the setting sun. Specialist Rodney DeMerchant peeks over his shoulder.

TAPE: CUT 1: DEMERCHANT

"Building 23 over to the left -- an abandoned dwelling that supposedly they use to run drugs into every now and again and other weapons and stuff. This haystack down here little haystack at the bottom of the hill down there is supposedly a place where they're hiding weapons and stuff. We go down and check it out, we went and tore it apart the other day, but there's nothing in there."

DS: This is Firebase Rock a small outpost camp on the Kosovo border with Macedonia. Soldiers serve ten-day rotations up here. Their mission is to stem the tide of smuggling across the border. They live in green canvas tents. When they're off duty, they watch satellite TV and play cards in the supply room.

CUT 2: NAT SOUND/ IN CRACKPOT

DS: The two young soldiers switch places. Just three years ago, hundreds of thousands of Albanians poured across these mountains to Macedonia. They were fleeing the Serbian paramilitary. Former President Slobodan Milosevic had allegedly given Serb troops orders to rid Kosovo of ethnic Albanians. Mr. Milosevic is now defending himself in front of a war crimes tribunal charged with so-called "ethnic cleansing". But today the border is quiet - only the naked branches of the trees quiver in the wind. Private Egeland says illegal woodcutting has been a bigger problem than smuggling during the three months he's been here. He says the two soldiers have to work to stay alert.

TAPE: CUT 3: EGELAND

"Pace around the room.buddies come up, talk to you.yeah, we'll come up, talk to them so they don't get tired, something to eat, something to drink, just to keep going when you're up here."

DS: Back at Fort Drum in New York state, Tenth Mountain soldiers train rigorously for combat. Exercises are punishing, often in the freezing cold of the northern New York winters. These soldiers aren't used to the slower rhythm of peacekeeping. So when they aren't watching the border or patrolling streets, they're doing what they can to stay sharp.

TAPE: CUT 4: NAT SOUND/ JUMPING JACKS

DS: It's early morning at Camp Bondsteel, the Tenth Mountain's main base in Kosovo. Men and women in sweatsuits do jumping jacks and push-ups. Except for the bold Army logo emblazoned across their chests, they almost disappear into the steel grey dawn.

TAPE: CUT 5: NAT SOUND/ HOLLERING/ RUNNING

"Pick it up!"

DS: Soldiers saunter along a running track and egg on their colleagues. Sergeant Wright Kamari clicks a stopwatch as each runner sprints by her. This is PT the exercise regimen all soldiers do to start their day. Sergeant Kamari chuckles at the suggestion that it's hard to find time to stay fit here.

TAPE: CUT 6: KAMARI

"Lots of time. We have all the time we need over here."

DS: She can lift weights in the weight room or train on exercise equipment in the fitness center. There's combat training nearly every day. But there's no substitute for being home. Sergeant Kamari says keeping her head and heart together is harder than keeping her body in top shape.

TAPE: CUT 7: KAMARI

"It's not as bad as I thought it would be. Of course you're gonna miss your family members and working seven days a week, but other than that, time's been going by fast and I've been keeping busy."

DS: Sergeant Alvin Pinckert sits on the wooden steps of a barrack nearby. He scribbles down the runner's times on a clipboard. He says his daily routine starts with his wife and two sons.

TAPE: CUT 8: PINCKERT

"When I wake up every morning, I've got a collage of everybody back home. Inside my wallet, that's the first thing I look at every morning. I go over and call my wife and my kids as much as possible."

DS: Like the rest of the military, the Army is struggling to recruit young people and retain high quality veterans. One of the biggest obstacles is the growing number of peacekeeping deployments like Kosovo. Six months to a year away from home can put any healthy family to the test. So the Army tries to compensate with top-notch military installations, like Camp Bondsteel. Bondsteel is the size of many small towns in America -- close to 7000 people live here. Its hospital is the best in all of Kosovo. Three dining halls offer fresh fruit, vegetables, and a buffet to rival that of any restaurant in the United States. Bondsteel has a theater, ping-pong and pool tables, dart boards, two computing centers, and a phone center that's open around the clock.

TAPE: CUT 9: NAT SOUND/ MUSIC/CAFÉ

DS: There's even a cappuccino café and a Burger King restaurant. The shiny booths and sleek tables look like suburban strip mall America magically transported to the Balkans. Tonight at the cafe, it's late. Employees are bussing away vases of Black-eyed Susans that adorn each table. Sergeant Charles Crowell sits alone at a table. He flips through the pages of "Stars and Stripes", the Army's daily newspaper. He needs only one word to describe how he's faring in Kosovo.

TAPE: CUT 10: CROWELL

"Bored."

DS: His soldiers joke that life at Bondsteel is like the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, where the actor's character was doomed to do the same exact thing, every day, forever. Joking aside, though, Sergeant Crowell says the hardest part for many soldiers isn't the boredom:

TAPE: CUT 11: CROWELL

"I think some of the newer soldiers coming in, and this is just my opinion, they don't really understand why they have to be here."

DS: He says some read the news from Afghanistan and wish they were in Central Asia instead of the Balkans. Sergeant Crowell served as a peacekeeper in Bosnia before coming to Kosovo, so he's familiar with the basic mission.

TAPE: CUT 12: CROWELL

"Just to maintain peace between the locals who pretty much just hate each other. But the young guys are like, why are we here? What are we doing here?"

DS: Many soldiers will spend nearly all their time in Kosovo inside the electrified fence of Camp Bondsteel. So for them, those are hard questions to answer. Sergeant Eugene Loveless is a Fort Drum chaplain. He says the gym, the recreation room, and the phones at Camp Bondsteel help soldiers keep from getting homesick.

TAPE: CUT 13: LOVELESS

"But without them actually going into communities and seeing how they're presence affects the communities and the children and the families and the people in general, it's hard for them to understand what they're actually doing over there."

DS: It's the soldiers who are out in the communities, he says, who have a better grip on the peacekeeping mission.

CUT 14: NAT SOUND/ CHILDREN

DS: It's late afternoon in the mountain village of Debelde, just down a muddy road from Firebase Rock. Boys and girls pour out of the town's one room schoolhouse. Few have jackets to wear despite the mountain chill.

TAPE: CUT 15: NAT SOUND

"Hello, hello."

DS: They swarm over to Private Jason Sanders, who's on patrol. He unclips a pair of binoculars from his camouflage flack jacket and holds them out. One by one, the kids squint through them and squeal with delight. Private Sanders says he loves playing with these kids.

TAPE: CUT 16: SANDERS

"Just to know how grateful they are to have the simple things in life, like running water, that kind of stuff."

DS: Private Sanders says his wife is pregnant with their first child. That's added to the stress of being away from home. But as a future father, he says, it's made him feel closer to the kids milling around him. And it's helped him understand why he's here, helping to keep peace among people who have seen so much violence.

For Dateline, I'm David Sommerstein in Kosovo.

MUSIC: SOLDIERS OF PEACE, CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG, AMERICAN DREAM (3:24)