So was I. Standing about 100 yards in front of the M-60, I heard the explosion, which flung the 2,000-pound steel tank track into the air, turning it into a pretzel. At first light, I saw the blast site: a hole nearly big enough to stash a VW Beetle. This bleak, muddy road cuts down the middle of the Zone of Separation (zos), a garbage-strewn, trench-pocked 1.2-mile swath of no man’s land between Serbs and Muslims. The road was supposed to be mine-free–cleared by Serbs, who poked the earth with long metal rods, checked by U.S. engineers and “proofed” by giant Abrams tanks outfitted with one-ton rollers. “This drill only shows you just how goddam dangerous it is, regardless of how careful you are,” said First Sgt. Tony Stoneberger, the topkick of Company A. “It’s gonna be a long year.”
The year didn’t start out too well, either, for the warriors of Company A. Its deployment to Bosnia won’t win any prizes. Stationed in Germany, Company A’s commander Capt. Kevin Volk and other battalion COs got separated from their command vehicles: the air force flew the Humvees and their drivers to Hungary, but neglected to tell the skippers the plane was leaving. While Volk hitched a ride to Hungary on a later USAF flight, most of his unit rode leased German’ buses to get there. One hitch: they ended up in Slovenski Brod, Croatia–miles from Hungary and way off-course from the crossing site into Bosnia on the Sava River. The vehicles, meantime, appeared in yet another part of Croatia. It took three days to locate all the pieces. Then the Sava overflowed, and the men couldn’t get in place until a week later.
Separating the warring parties has been a snap, by comparison. The 3/5th Cav CO Lt. Col. Anthony A. Cucolo III worked out a deal with the local Serb and Bosnian commanders to have all units and weapons pulled back by dawn on Jan. 15-four days ahead of the NATO deadline. But on that foggy morning, Captain Volk of Company A, standing on vacated Serb positions with one of their officers, Capt. Vidakovic Milotad, spotted the gray silhouettes of Bosnian soldiers moving through the trenchwork. “Yesterday they shot at us when we were out clearing mines,” Milotad said. “They can’t be trusted.” Volk radioed Cucolo, explaining that the Bosnian positions weren’t cleared. Minutes later Cucolo’s voice cracked over the radio, “It was a misunderstanding. They’re moving back.” After noon, the ZOS cleared. Led by two U.S. teams, the Serb and Bosnian delegations met on a road called Route Pepsi. Grim-faced, the two COs mechanically shook hands and went off in opposite directions. “The Serbs are all killers,” the Muslim CO Mumanovic Semsudin said later. “They can’t be trusted.”
The grunts have learned to solve problems–the local way. In the town of Ulice, where the 3/5th Cav is deployed, Milenko Antunovic, a Bosnian Croat, showed up last week. He’d fled the village in 1998 just ahead of marauding Serbs. Now, driving down from Stuttgart, Germany, Antunovic tried to revisit the place his family had lived in for more than 400 years, but was nabbed at a Serb checkpoint, where a policeman demanded a 20-mark “gift.” He refused, was fined 40 marks for not wearing his seat belt and was allowed to pass–only to be arrested by Serb authorities. Then Volk intervened. “This man and his friends are my responsibility,” he told the Serbs. Two hours–and 50 cigarettes–later, the two captains reached an understanding, and the Croats were freed. The 3/5th Cav is mastering the art of persuasion.
