Chapter 1: Welcome to Sarajevo

Chapter 1: “Welcome to Sarajevo”

I was hung over and felt like shit when the U.S. Air Force C-130 smacked down on the lone surviving half of a runway at the Sarajevo airport. The sweaty smell of my fellow passengers didn’t help my flip-flopping stomach. I didn’t want to throw up in front of the guys, so I simply swallowed and then sipped from the Italian bottle of water I was given before boarding in Naples.

I tried to distract myself by peering out the tiny window for signs of the devastation Adrianne Amanpour glamorized on CNN. This was history. I saw emerald green hills which faded to smokey mountains in the distance, a few armed French soldiers standing on the concrete remains of a runway, and not much else.

“Huuuuya!” whooped Petty Officer 1st Class Dave Marsh, my fellow Navy journalist who I had met just a little over a week ago while training to be soldiers at the Army’s Fort Benning in Georgia and then later in armschtadt, Germany. With his head completely shaved like a boot camp Marine and his BDU sleeves rolled up so perfect that he’d make any Marine Corps drill instructor proud, he jumped out of his seat. I personally believed he’d joined the wrong service.

Senior Chief Dan Hanson, the third and final sailor amongst the soldiers and Marines on the plane, grinned with his Norwegian baby-face, and slapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s get this party started!”

Why is it, I wondered, that while we all drank the same rounds at the Naples base club last night, I was the only who seemed to feel it? OK, so maybe it had to do that with the fact that even if they were on the scrawny side
of Arnold Schwartzenegger, they still outweighed me by at least 50-60 pounds.

Damn! Why do I always feel that in order to be respected as part of this military Go-Joe team, I have to do what they do? It’s just like the fifth grade when I was creamed by Tommy Rhodes after catching the kickoff of my first recess football game. I was so surprised that I had actually caught the football I just froze. Tommy showed no mercy and knocked me flat on the ground, making my dress go up to my waist. Thankfully, I had learned in the fourth grade that if I wanted to play boy games, I had to wear a pair of shorts underneath the school-mandated dresses. Tommy didn’t even help me up.

I grabbed my camera bag, helmet and Kevlar vest down from the overhead, and fell into Senior Chief almost knocking him over. “Sorry. These ugly Army boots are too big,” I muttered, trying not to throw up all over his back. I didn’t need to make my first day in country to start like that. I needed the fresh air fast.

We walked down the ass-end of the plane with the 50 or so other passengers: mostly U.S. soldiers and Marines, and a few in civilian clothes.

“Senior Chief Hanson! Over here,” a pudgy-faced petty officer motioned. Senior Chief headed toward him, Dave and I followed.

“I’m JO1 Blaine Atkins, from the Coalition Press Information Centre. . . C-pick for short. . . Welcome to Sarajevo!” he smirked with a grin that looked like he had just heard a dirty joke. He pointed to a sun and sea-weathered face chief petty officer. “This here is Chief Barnes.”

We all introduced ourselves and I noticed how tired they looked. I especially noticed a tiny scar on the chief’s right temple and my imagination began making up exciting stories about how he came to wear that badge of bravery. . . or stupidity.

“Glad to see ya’ll made it, said Barnes in a Texas accent. “We’ve been here six months and can’t wait to get back home. . .back to reality. . . Taco Bell. . .cold beer. . .Troy Aikman and the Cowboys. . .oh yeah, the wife, and. . .”

I zoned out on his rambling and started feeling woozy in the midday June sun. Who knew temps reached the 90s in this country? I desperately needed to go. . .where? Anywhere at that minute but where I stood. Sweat streamed down my neck and back and into my trousers. I swear I could actually smell the tequila oozing out of my pores. I hoped no one else would notice.

The loud clapping sound of Blaine’s pudgy hands coming together jerked me back from my zoning trip. “Let’s get your seabags and head to the Holiday Inn,” he said and led us toward a green mountain of seabags; all the exact same green canvas bags piled up on the starboard side of the C-130. I should have put bright pink ribbons on my bags, I thought, searching for the name, JONES stenciled on my two bags. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for finding my bags, and not throwing up.

Dave and Senior Chief found their bags too and we followed Blaine and the Texan chief toward a new ’96 white double-cab pickup truck with “IFOR” emblazoned in black on the doors and hood. Implementation Forces, IFOR. Just why does the military use big long words for something that can be said in half the size and then turnaround and use a cutesy acronym? IFOR is the NATO supplied military peacekeepers in support of “Operation Joint Endeavour.” I wonder if the Joints Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense and President Clinton sit around in the Oval Office and have an operation name-making contest to come up with these operational names?

I stumbled behind and trying to not only carry the 10-pound Kevlar vest and 5-pound helmet, and camera bag, but also the two Army issued seabags full of camouflage uniforms and all its paraphernalia and extras that the United States mandated for its deployed troops (got to outshine all the other armies): a gas mask (tested by yours truly at a training session at Benning); a fold-up spade for digging, what a portable potty?; goggles; two pairs of boots for each level of weather; laundry bag; and other olive green articles, from socks to towels. We also had some PT gear and a couple changes of civilian clothing that we put to good use on our off-duty time in Georgia, Darmschtadt, and again last night in Italy.

As military journalists, we were not assigned M-16 rifles like our fellow military troops. Not even 9 mm pistols. Nope. Our shooting was to be done with cameras and our “fighting” with carefully chosen words to meet the editorial satisfaction of the U.S. military.

Dave started to put on his Kevlar vest and helmet.

“You don’t need to wear those here,” said Blaine. “You’re assigned to the IFOR Informer, NATO’s bi-weekly rag to promote morale and explain how all these foreign soldiers are doing Bosnia a favor. Because it’s part of NATO, we folllow its rules.”

“That means, for most days, no helmets or vests are required in Sarajevo,” piped in Chief Barnes, “not like our compadres up in the American sector, up in Tuzla. Those poor bastards hafta wear the vests and helmets ev’ry time they’re outdoors. Even if they’re walking to the latrine in the middle of the night, or are going to PT.

“Blaine gave that dirty-joke smile again. “Even when they run an errand here to Sarajevo, they have to wear ‘em” because it’s a General Order,” he said as he made the international symbol of quotation marks in the air with his pudgy fingers.

He stopped to unwrap a grape Tootsie Pop, stuck it in his mouth for a quick taste and pulled it back out. “Believe it or not, you’ve got probably the best job of any U.S. troops in country.” The lollipop went back in his mouth.

Just what that meant, I didn’t care at the moment. I just wanted to get to a bathroom, go pee and throw some cold water on my face.

And so began my first hour in a fledgling young country born from violence after the dissolution of the Soviet bloc nations, but raised on 800 years of ethnic hatred.