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Part V: "Going Home" So it was down to the last two weeks. Myself and another soldier got a mission on the far end of Camp Bondsteel to monitor a retrans site. It was boring, but at least nobody bothered us. Our home was a small little tent with a cot, a light and a pot bellied stove for warmth. By now, it was just about December and it was coooooold, made worse by an arctic wind that blew constantly. Here's a picture of my cozy confines...
As I said, there wasn't much to do on the hill. There was, however, a fantastic view, as you can see in the pictures below...
Here's myself, SGT Hanover and SPC Britt acting all hooah and stuff...
Another cool view from Camp Bondsteel...
One of the big events during my two weeks at Bondsteel was the visit by President Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea. In the picture below, some chucklehead stepped right in front of me as I was taking the picture of Slick Willy. And, as luck would have it, it was the last picture on my camera...
I got another camera - just in time to catch his convoy escorting him to his waiting chopper...
As the time in Kosovo drew to an end, I smoked a cigar to celebrate the end of a long successful mission...
Soon we would be on our way back to Camp Able Sentry, then down to Greece to load our vehicles back on the boat. There had been a lot of protests in Thessaloniki against the Kosovo peacekeeping mission, so it was planned so that we would drive through the city around 2 or 3 AM to avoid any trouble. What they didn't plan on, however, was that it was Friday night and the discos would be emptying out around that time. So instead of the streets being bare, they were filled with drunk, angry young Greeks dressed in black who yelled at us as we drove through their city. They seemed to take pleasure in throwing bottles, rocks, or whatever was handy at us as well. Fortunately, we had a Greek police escort, so there wasn't too much danger. After loading up our vehicles, we stayed on a Greek military base for about 5 or 6 days killing time waiting for our flight back to Germany. Finally, we were escorted to the runway, boarded the plane and headed home...
So ended what was probably my greatest service to my country. I've never been in combat, and I hope that Kosovo is the closest I'll ever come. I learned a lot during my time there. The most important thing I learned was that I can excel in such an environment. Though it turned out to not be very dangerous, there were times when we didn't know what we were heading into, and I handled it as well as I hoped I would. I always wondered if I "had what it takes" when it counted, and I proved to myself that I did. There were alot of other people who did a lot more and faced conditions far more dangerous than I did in Kosovo, but I'll always be proud of what I accomplished there. |
