The Little Girl

The wheels of our Humvee splashed through the puddles of the muddy alley as we moved cautiously between the shanty like houses on either side. Although my eyes constantly scanned the environment, my squad automatic weapon was pointed skywards. Our cautious movement were due to the large amount of children chasing us and dodging between vehicles. We had been in Kosovo just a few days and this ethnic Albanian village had just recently been under the threat of Serbian attack.

NATO NATO !!! The children yelled as they pelted our vehicles with flowers. I imagined the troops that had liberated France experienced somewhat of a similar reception as they chased the Nazis across Europe. Our small 2 vehicle patrol stopped on the side of the road as our Team Leader got out of the vehicle to stretch his legs and get his bearings. He was mobbed by the older children, asking for candy and trying to touch his uniform.

Standing off to the side, shyly looking from the shadow of a doorway I saw a little girl. She must have been 4-5 years old. She had dark brown hair and brown almost black eyes. Her skin was brown and she was wearing a bright blue t shirt. The older children crowded her out but it was obvious she was curious about the Americans and our big green vehicles.

I beckoned her over and I jumped down from the hatch of the Humvee. I reached into my pocket where I kept a chocolate bar and I handed it to her. Her eyes lit up as she unwrapped the bar and shoved half of it into her mouth. I laughed, she reminded me of my own daughter who was back in Germany with my Wife. The little girl munched on the candy as the brown chocolatey drool dripped from  the corners of her mouth. She took her sticky fingers and pointed towards my right shoulder where I had an American flag patch sewn to my battle dress uniform. Through a series of hand gestures we established that she wanted to touch the flag. I made a face to show her that her hands were a sticky mess but I reached into my pocket were I had another flag patch that I had been saving for a moment like this.

Suddenly our lead vehicle started to move and I leaped back into the hatch of our vehicle. I threw the patch at the little girl and waved as we moved off further into the mountainous countryside. Several weeks later we passed through the same village. By that time our presence was not as unusual and the children basically ignored us as they kicked their soccer balls and played in the muddy streets. I had almost forgotten the little girl until I saw her racing across the open field that served as the village center. I recognized her because she was wearing the same bright blue t shirt. As she got closer I could see that the shirt was different somehow. That is when I saw the red,white and blue American flag that she had sewn on to the right shoulder of her shirt. Sewn in the same place we wore ours. I waved although we did not stop. She proudly pointed at the flag and I gave her a thumbs up as we rounded the corner and she was out of sight.

Sometimes I wonder about the little girl, she would be in her late teens or early twenties by now. I wonder if she still has that flag and if she is still as proud of it as  I am.

Recon Patrol

On my second deployment to Kosovo in 2000, I was the acting Team Sergeant of an ODA out of 1^st Bn 10^th SFG (A) in Boeblingen, Germany. I was “acting” Team Sergeant for the ODA due to the fact that I had just been made a promotable E7 or Sergeant First Class. Promotable meant I was on the list for promotion to Master Sergeant but it wouldn’t happen until my number came up. This was all new to me, I had never been a Team Sergeant before and I was taken off the Military Freefall ODA I had been on for the last two years and put on an ODA that had just lost a very good Team Sergeant to his own promotion. There was some initial suspicion among the other team members due to the fact that I was a “new” guy and also I was perceived as somewhat of a “HALO GOD” due to my long time spent on Military Freefall detachments. There is even professional jealousy among special operators but I had never felt any of it towards others. Eventually this suspicion went away and a few years later a few of these same guys asked to be on the Military Freefall ODA I was Team Sergeant of. It’s hard to live up to a legend though and I don’t think I ever did measure up to their previous Team Sergeant in their eyes. We were different people and they had been an extremely tight unit, but the mission got accomplished and that is all that mattered.

My second tour in Kosovo was very different from the first. The first time around we were all geared towards winning hearts and minds and stabilizing the country. We were staying out in the countryside and doing presence patrols trying to meet the people and showing the American Flag. This time, a year into U.S. operations in the region, we were deployed to conduct special reconnaissance missions against selected targets. This meant instead of trying to be seen we were trying to remain undiscovered. We ran all of our patrols out of a compound on the northern end of the main U.S. base Camp Bondsteel. Our compound was a base within a base, our headquarters building, isolation /planning area, barracks, and recreation area were all surrounded by a double thick wall of HESCO barriers that separated us from the “regular” Army guys. My team was attached to a company from 2^nd Bn 10^th SFG(A) who were running their own very different operations across the countryside. Also conducting reconnaissance with us was a platoon of Navy Seals, our two units would trade responsibilities during these missions. Part of one unit would conduct the actual recon while the rest of that unit and the other unit would team up and act as a quick reaction force in case there was any trouble. This QRF could also extract the recon team on short notice if needed. We spent our entire tour in this manner, flip flopping responsibilities. In between missions, as most Special Forces teams do, we conducted weapons and equipment maintenance and trained and trained some more.

A typical mission happened about half way through our tour. There was suspicion that a Kosavar Albanian terrorist group was conducting planning meetings for some future bad acts at a village located in a mountain valley in north eastern Kosovo. Our ODA was tasked to conduct surveillance on this village and report back to the Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) any pertinent intelligence we may gather. Once we got the initial briefing from JSOTF we initiated the mission planning cycle in our isolation bay. Once in “isolation” for a mission SF teams do not interact with anyone but their own team mates and are totally focused on the mission and the planning for it. The 72 hour planning cycle included conducting METT-T analysis, developing courses of action, choosing the most feasible one, developing the plan of action and contingency upon contingency. Finally rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. One of the rehearsals developed by our Engineer Sergeant involved crawling through a pitch black bomb shelter with full gear and night vision goggles on. This bomb shelter was also fiendishly booby trapped as only an SF demolition man knows how. We went through it one after the other until we could move through without blowing ourselves up. Then we went through as buddy teams and finally as a entire team. As we were to infiltrate by Blackhawk helicopter we went out to the airstrip and practiced loading and unloading the aircraft until we could do it with our eyes closed and in the dark. Finally we conducted our brief back to the JSOTF commander and were given the green light for the mission.

The night we were to infiltrate we packed and inspected all our mission essential equipment and personal gear. Stripper clips, time fuze and det cord were laying every where as we loaded bullets into our magazines and primed our claymores with 10 second delays. These Claymore anti-personnel mines were to be used at the tail end of one of our immediate action drills. This particular drill involved breaking contact using the “Australian Peel.” If heavy contact was made our lead man would empty his magazine and then peel back down our “ranger” file while the next man emptied his magazine and then did the same. So on and so on until we had broken contact with the enemy. Then the claymores would be emplaced to discourage any further pursuit by hostiles. Once we were geared up and ready to go we loaded into our vehicles for the ride to the airstrip.

Upon arrival we loaded in to the helicopter and listened to the whine of the blades as they changed pitch and we lifted off. Our flight route followed a well known supply route for U.S. Forces. It was our hope that with this and several false insertions along the route our target would be tricked into thinking our helicopter was just another mail run up to the main Kosovo Force (KFOR) headquarters. We conducted several false insertions until the crew chief told me over my headset that we were one minute out from the mountain meadow we had chosen as our infiltration landing zone. The Blackhawk came to a hover a few feet off the ground and the static electricity coming off the blades swirled likes shooting stars as we piled out of the bird and set up a hasty 360 degree defensive perimeter. As soon as they were satisfied all of my team had un-assed the bird the helicopter took off suddenly leaving us in silence. As we moved into the tree line we could hear it moving off in the distance conducting one more of our planned false insertions before they made their way back to base.  Once we were in the cover of the trees we set up another perimeter and remained absolutely quiet and alert. We stayed there for almost 20 minutes satisfying ourselves we had not been compromised and adjusting our eyes and ears to the sights and sounds of the battle field. From that point on conversation, if at all, would be in very low whispers and an elaborate system of hand and arms signals. We would move in single file through the woods and darkness spaced out enough to react to an ambush. Our point man would be first, our compass man second, and as the Patrol leader I would be third in line. The rest of the patrol members would be trailing out behind us.

Combat Patrols at night are an elaborate ballet of movement, security, and navigation. Patrol members needs to remain alert for ambush while at the same time navigating through unfamiliar terrain using a map and compass in pitch darkness. All the while they need to avoid the dreaded “break in contact” where part of the team gets spread out and loses track of the rest of the team’s location. As per our standard operating procedure we had infiltrated our objective area at least one terrain feature away from our objective. And since this part of Kosovo was mountainous that terrain feature was a huge ridgeline. We picked up our rucksacks and started silently moving on azimuth towards the objective. Our movement would consist of five kilometers of up a mountain down a mountain, along with the occasional stream crossing and navigational readjustment. As dawn approached we were within 500 meters of our planned patrol base and myself and two of my other team members conducted a leaders recon to determine the best position to set up shop.

Unfortunately the best area for cover, concealment and observation was the side of another huge ridge that faced the valley in which the village was located. This location gave us great line of sight for our optics and digital cameras; it also allowed us a good satellite communication shot for our SATCOM radio. It was defensible and gave us several good escape routes. Bade news was the pitch on the slope was so steep that you could not sit or stand straight without tying yourself off to a tree. We had thought of that contingency however and we were each carrying a section of one inch tubular webbing and a snap link that we could fashion into a safety harness. We quickly moved in before the sun was up and set up our spotting scopes and communication equipment. We camouflaged our positions with some hide material (camo nets) we had packed in our rucksacks. We stayed at 50% security during the whole patrol; while half the team rested the other half conducted observation and pulled security. Every morning before dawn and just before dusk we would conduct stand to and stand down where the entire team was on 100% alert.

We conducted surveillance for three days and nights, taking dozens of digital pictures and transmitting them via SATCOM radio back to the JSOTF. We took pictures of vehicles, license plates and individuals entering and exiting houses in the village. The JSOTF would compare this information to a data base to see if any of the individuals were known terrorists. We also transmitted situation reports or SITREPS twice daily on any suspicious movement or activity. We discovered a few large gatherings conducted at a particular house and we forwarded this information on, the most suspicious thing we discovered was that whenever a KFOR helicopter flew down the valley on its way somewhere the residents of the valley would sound their vehicle horns in a crude early warning system. You could hear these horns long before the sound of the helicopter rotor blades.

After three days of sleeping tied to a tree we packed up our gear and prepared to exfiltrate. Exfiltration was essentially the reverse of the infiltration, we moved silently towards our link up point under cover of darkness. Just as dawn was breaking we linked up with our QRF at a road intersection. We exchanged bonafides and they gave us a ride back to Camp Bondsteel in the back of our Hummvees. Once we debriefed the JSOTF Commander on our findings we all headed off for a shower and some much needed sleep. I myself was looking forward to grabbing a macchiato at the cappuccino bar and seeing if the mess hall had any new flavors of ice cream. It is the little things that make life tolerable.

Kosovo Kamenica

The cow I had my M2 .50 caliber machinegun pointed at continued to chew its cud as if nothing had happened. Satisfying myself that I was safe from any bovine hostility I swung the muzzle of the weapon back towards the two story white plastered building that served as the farmhouse. There had been reports of sniper fire in this area and my team had pulled our two up armored Humvees in a loose perimeter surrounding the farmhouse and the adjacent barn. The farm was something right out of every fairytale you ever read. The house was shuttered with bright red shutters and had an actual thatched roof. Surrounding it and the barn were free range chickens and cows that wandered the property with out the benefit of any barbed wire or enclosure that is so common in the United States. A little farther from the house you could see people cutting hay with scythes and actually constructing some honest to goodness haystacks.
After talking to the Ethnic Albanian family that lived on this property we discovered a 12 year old boy hiding in the barn with a small caliber rifle. Apparently he had decided that it would be fun to take pot shots at the Serbian farmers driving their horse and wagons down the two lane highway that ran adjacent to his family’s property. The farm was located outside an ethnically mixed Albanian and Serbian community in the northeastern corner of Kosovo. The name of the village was Kosovo Kamenica and my Special Forces team had been living in town for the last week attempting to defuse situations just like this. We took down the family’s name and location and through our Albanian interpreter “Sammi” we gave the young man a good chewing out. Not much else we could do as no one had actually seen him shooting at anyone and he had not hit anybody.
My company had deployed out of Stuttgart, Germany to Brindisi, Italy and a mothballed Air Force air station called San Vito. We had spent the time prior to our arrival in Kosovo training and standing by for on call Combat Search and Rescue(CSAR) operations in support of the NATO bombing campaign of the former Yugoslavia. While one team was on “up cell” for CSAR the rest of us trained on weapons, tactics, building entry, military freefall parachuting, communications and medical training. Basically everything the well dressed special operator needs to invade a foreign country.
The rumor mill was rampart with theories about when we would put troops on the ground to engage the Serbian boogie man that our President had decided needed to be taught a lesson. The international community felt that the Serbian ethnic cleansing policy in regards to the Albanian majority in Kosovo was not conducive to good order and stability in the region and had commenced a bombing campaign lead by the United States to encourage them to cease and desist. Some other special operators had linked up with the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army to conduct some CAS (Close Air Support) missions while my unit was doing CSAR. For the most part it was hurry up and wait, something I was used to after 15 years in the military. So this cycle of “up cell” and training went on for weeks and months until suddenly we were told to pack our bags and get ready to move by MC130 to Skopje, Macedonia.
The civilian airport in Skopje had enjoyed the benefit of millions of dollars of upgrades courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer since the NATO air campaign had started. We stayed in a tent city for a few days waiting on some vehicles and equipment to arrive. Once our company received its compliment of vehicles we headed north up the crappy two lane highway on our way to Kosovo. At the border was a massive line of cars and transport trucks. Those heading south were trying to escape the destruction caused by the Serbian forces and those heading north were trying to use the cover of U.S forces to go back to their homes. We bypassed the border crossing on a dirt road that went around the traffic jam and continued up through mountain passes. I was in the turret of the Humvee manning the .50 cal and I kept looking up at the steep mountain slopes to our left and right wondering if all the Serbs got the word that they were supposed to retreat. This road sure looked like a good place for an ambush to me.
Eventually the terrain flattened out and we continued up the highway, occasionally we saw children on the side of the road waving to us and we waved back. After a few hours drive we pulled off on a dirt road and headed up a hill guarded by an M1 Abrams tank that was flying a large American flag. I didn’t know it at the time but I would be back to this plot of land many times over the next 3 years. Eventually I spent 3 deployments and almost 9 months in Kosovo. This particular area would become the main U.S. base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. But right now it was just a large grassy field with rolling hills. Many units were gathered in a hodgepodge with each one setting up concertina wire and GP Large tents to claim their own Tactical Operations Center (TOC) locations. My Team Sergeant located our company Sergeant Major and found out we would be moving farther north in the am. For the time being we crashed out around our vehicles in the grass. No need for anything more than local security, nobody was going to mess with the tanks we had surrounding us.
The next morning we headed north up the main supply route as it passed through the large city of Gnjilane and snaked its way through the mountains towards our objective the village of Kosovo Kamenica or Kamenica for short. Traveling through a small village we saw many people gathered at a concrete wading pool all trying to beat the heat. They had even brought their goats to cool off. We joked about that and nicknamed the area “the gene pool.” All the people we met were ecstatic to see us and all the kids would chase our vehicles and if we stopped everyone would throw flowers on us and try to shake our hands. All the people that is but the Serbs, they weren’t quite sure what to do seeing as they had just lost out on their status as the preferred minority in this province courtesy of NATO. We could tell the ethnicity of each village almost immediately. Minarets, happy children, flowers, shouts of Naaatoo! Naatoo! equaled ethnic Albanian. Orthodox Church, and sullen downturned faces equaled ethnic Serbian.
Finally we arrived in Kamenica and we scouted out places to set up our patrol base. We decided on an abandoned cement factory that still had glass windows and carpet in the administration building. The entire factory had been looted so we cleared out several offices and took them over as our base of operations. Shortly after setting up shop an entire company of US Marines showed up and asked if they could join us and occupy some of the other buildings. Be my guest Devil Dogs, the more the merrier and we could sure use the extra security. Over the next few days we made the area secure by sandbagging the perimeter, installing concertina wire and basically making it all homey in a military way. Our Senior Medic even devised a kind of shower using buckets and some PVC pipe he tied together. It sure was a big hit with us and the Marines. We gave the Marine private on gate guard duty the additional duty of keeping water boiling in a large vat so we could all take hot showers when required, ahhh the little things make life good!
Daily my team would drive out on mobile patrols in our area of operations and make first contact with villagers in the mountains and along the Serbian border assuring them that NATO was here to help both Serb and Albanian and that we were not there to take sides only to keep the peace and stop the bloodshed. As mentioned before more often than note we were greeted with flowers and offers of hot chai (tea). Eventually even the Serbs in the area warmed up to us and started offering us a little Pivo (beer) for our trouble. I will tell you that down the street from our factory was a Serbian pizza place that made an outstanding pizza pie and the Albanian cafés made a pretty tasty macchiato.
It wasn’t all pizza and cafés however, at night you could practically drive without headlights because of all the burning houses. The Albanians were using this time to take revenge on the Serbs by setting houses on fire and randomly shooting at Serb families. Their defense was that it was merely eye for an eye, I myself came to the conclusion that we had bombed the wrong people. This conclusion was vindicated in my mind many years later when it was reported ethnic Albanians from Kosovo had joined the Jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq and were actively trying to kill U.S. Soldiers. We were investigating the reports of a grenade attack inside the home of an eighty year old Serbian woman one day when the local Kosovo Liberation Army commander informed us she had killed herself playing with the grenade in her living room, I wanted to shot to him right in his slimy face, what a liar.
So the days went by, one patrol after another but I didn’t feel we were making any headway on either side. How were we expected to influence a conflict that had been going on for over 500 years? These people were still pissed at each other over a battle that had happened during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Eventually more US forces arrived in the area and they had us withdraw piecemeal with some of my team leaving and other staying behind. I was one of the first to head back down the highway to Skopje to board that freedom bird back to Germany. Little did I know that I would be back again and staying a lot longer the next time.