Special Operations.Com

William A. Easterling, 21 November 1998

A story about an event that took place during Operation Joint Guard in Bosnia-Herzegovina, while operating in the Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb controlled part of the country. Real names are not used due to the fact that the characters in the story are still on active duty within the US Special Operations Forces. The "Official" mission they were conducting, which led to the incident this story is based on, is still ongoing. The mission is to provide the ground truth about what is actually going on in the various sectors throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Major NATO commanders who are responsible for monitoring the compliance of the former warring factions with the Dayton Peace Accords.

The Fourth of July was an interesting holiday this year. I spent it in a small town near Srebrenica, Republika Srpska, where the last major offensive of the Bosnian civil war was fought. Actually it was the last major round up of Bosniaks (Muslim Bosnians) from a NATO protected enclave by the Bosnian Serbs. This action prompted a devastating air strike courtesy of the US Air Force. Time has shown us that the men and boys that were taken prisoner those few days in Srebrenica were given a ride that lasted the rest of their lives and ended in various mass graves. Today, however, the average Serb can not understand why an "ally" from WWII would fight against them in their time of need. All this helped set the stage for the constant struggle our team had in dealing with our contacts while attempting to maintain an unbiased, observer's viewpoint in the accomplishment of our mission.

While we presented this former Yugoslavian town with its first American hamburger and hot dog cookout, we entertained a few curious local VIP type folks. The town mayor "Slav" looked more like an undertaker or worse, like someone who would get great enjoyment from pulling out someone's fingernails with a pair of pliers. He was accompanied by the very nationalistic, local political party leader. While I talked about current issues and what was going on around the country, they both kept bringing the conversation back to the United States and how we treated the Native Americans. Of course, they wanted to know how we would have dealt with the United Nations, had they been around during that time and had tried to force a mandate between the "white man" and the "red skins." They may have been third world, but they were never to be mistaken for uneducated hicks.

The Chief of Surgery and the Director from the local hospital also stopped by. It so happened the Doc was also a Senator in the newly formed RS legislative assembly. They were more sociable and primarily talked about troubles they were having with funding projects and collecting from various NATO or other governmental organizations they felt owed them money. I have to admit, I'd never had an American Senator from the Federal or State level at my cookouts back home.

Finally, LTC Basevic of the RS Army visited us. He was the liaison officer with the Corps HQ of the unit that had responsibility for the area we lived in. Since we all were military, we always had an easy time talking with each other, as long as it was an "easy" subject. Alex mentioned, sort of as a side bar comment, that he would like us to drop by the office so he could talk about something a little more official. He seemed to want to keep the talk at our "house" simple and friendly and didn't mention the requested visit again. I believe now, he wanted to test us and see if we really were willing to help as much as we had told him in our initial official visits.

LTC Basevic told me and Barney in his office that there had been a border crossing incident which involved Muslim soldiers from the Army of Bosnia & Herzegovina (ABIH) who had conducted a terrorist raid on a local RS village and resulted in one of the ABIH soldiers being killed. He gave us a location and then watched to see what we would do. Barney assured Alex that we would go check it out and make a report to our headquarters. The location was about an hours drive away and not only right on the edge of the Zone of Separation (ZOS) between the RS and ABIH territory, but right between our own sector and the sector of the adjacent US team which operated as we did. It was late in the afternoon already, but we decided we would get what equipment we needed and inform the rest of the team of what had been said, then drive out to get a feel for what might be going on.

We arrived at the area and after asking a few questions, were directed to a large brown wooden house on top of a hill at the end of a ridgeline, that was the last cleared area before entering the ZOS. The Stabilization Forces (SFOR) convoys had not patrolled this area in several weeks due to increased requirements in other areas. The village was actually only a few houses scattered among the hilltops that the dirt road we had followed wound around. As we stopped and exited the civilian 4WD Terrano SUV we used as a patrol vehicle, we were met by a man in his late 20s who seemed very suspicious of who we claimed to be and what we were actually doing. As I explained the reason for us being there, Barney and I noticed activity just outside of our easily observable terrain. Without any spoken directives, we moved into slightly offset positions where we were able to observe behind each other. Our interpreter was a young woman who had emigrated with her parents from the Balkan region to the United States during the war and had been hired by the Department of Defense for her language skills. At this point she was blissfully unaware of the possible compromising position Barney and I believed we might have just gotten into. We heard several men speaking just over the ridge near the house and a few others were seen moving in our direction from the other houses and woodline. The house we were nearest to had a military type antenna on the roof and I could see at least two men looking out the windows from within. As soon as the man we were speaking to understood why we were there he yelled up towards the house and we were joined by several others who wanted to tell their version of what had happened. Our personal threat level indicators gradually returned to a more normal state as we listened to and observed the people around us. These country folks were simply afraid and were very happy to treat us as an official part of the system that they hoped would restore a more normal and civilized environment for them to live in.

It seemed the attack had occurred about 2300 or eleven o'clock at night by five men dressed in the Federation style camouflaged uniforms. They came out of the woods and pushed open the door of the first house they came to. The house they picked happened to be occupied by three or four men who were living there without their families while cutting trees in the forest. As the number one man from the attacking party burst through the door, one of the men sitting behind it attempted to kick it closed again. As he did, the door slamming into the number two man caused him to trip and fire a three to four round burst from his AK-47 rifle, of which one round struck the number one man from his team. The attackers were suddenly retreating and dragging their wounded comrade along with them towards the woods. As they attempted to escape, several of the loggers from other houses began to head towards the commotion and give pursuit. The fleeing soldiers left the wounded man behind when they got to a fence that they could not get the man across. They did however, take his weapon with them.

The villagers took the wounded man, who had been gut shot through the back to a nearby house and began to question him. After the villagers refused any medical aid until he explained what was going on he began telling them the following story.

He was very distraught at having been left behind by the others and called them cowards and traitors. He told his captors that he and his team had been ordered to come into this village and kill all the Serbs they could find. If they were successful, they were to rally near another village in the area and regroup. He had been carrying a hand grenade, an unknown unit marking on his uniform and a small rucksack with some food and personal items in it. He also had the rifle, which had reportedly been taken away by he fleeing comrades. We were told the "terrorist" died of his wounds about an hour and a half after he had been captured. When we asked if the local police or the UN International Police Task Force (IPTF) had been notified, they said that they had called the local military commander on the radio (at the other end of the antenna we had seen) and the next day the police had come out and taken the body and equipment and directed questions to everyone that was involved. We wanted to look at the house but it was beginning to get dark and we were told by another man who had just joined us at the vehicle that the "Colonel" wanted to talk to us before we investigated any further.

Barney and I decided it would be better to return to this area in the daylight and as we were so far into the country side, it would be prudent to get back towards town and stop by and visit the military post on our way home. We received instructions on where the compound was and then departed the village.

When we arrived at the compound we were asked to park our vehicle outside the gate and walk about 300 meters into the wooded area to a large log cabin style house. This apparently was the headquarters building for Colonel Vidakovic and his staff. Vidakovic was an apparent war hero who had made his way up the ranks on a blood covered platform and was still having a hard time trying to deal with the political situation that now called for diplomacy and intelligence, rather than bravery and an ability to kill unhesitatingly. We were escorted to the briefing room, a large rectangle shaped room with an adjoining room that apparently linked up with the kitchen. In happier days, this room must have been a formal dining room. The table and chairs were still there, but now rifles were hanging on the wall alongside pictures of Radovan Karadzic and General Maladic.

The Colonel was a large man, about six-foot, four-inches tall and 250 pounds. He was in a camouflage uniform and was carrying a machine pistol on his belt. He had his staff sitting in the room and they all appeared to be armed with AK rifles, either on the table, or nearby. His XO was a very quiet man and I had the impression he could understand English, but would not speak any. He had a couple of lower ranking officers who were there more to give us an outnumbered feeling than anything else. He also had a female lieutenant, who while had the typical Serbian post-war bad teeth, was very attractive and while she was wearing a field uniform like the others, sported high heels and a half unbuttoned shirt that was giving a lot of credit to her pushup bra's contents. I could sense our interpreter, whom the Colonel was giving some unwanted attention to, was very uncomfortable with the situation. She continued to act completely professional and carried on as we had instructed her to do, without showing any out right fear or contempt. Senada, however, was very frightened. She always had us call her Sandy because Senada was a Muslim name. She was of the Muslim faith, albeit in name only. She didn't practice any of the customary traditions, much like many people of the Christian faith. Vidakovic, for whatever reason, had immediately sensed that Sandy was Muslim and told her so. She claimed to have a Montenegrin ethnical background and that she was not a Muslim. She then translated what was being said and I told him that she was an American citizen and he would talk to Barney and I and Sandy was only an interpreter that he needed not to worry about.

Vidakovic had been drinking 'slivo, a locally produced, very strong, peach brandy and was becoming quite intoxicated. The first hour of the meeting had turned into something close to a scene out of a training film on what happens to Prisoners of War during an interrogation. Barney and I took turns answering questions with questions and utilizing different techniques of guiding the conversation while allowing him to believe he was still in charge of the direction it was headed. I was seated at the corner next to the XO, who was still saying nothing and only listening. I had made a sidebar comment or two to Barney, when I noticed that he definitely appeared to know, at least a little, English. This complicated matters slightly as Vidakovic continued with his verbal assault. He had accused us of wanting to arrest him for war crimes and also stated that we were CIA operatives.

An article naming the village our team lived in and labeling us as CIA had been printed in a Belgrade newspaper a couple of weeks earlier, shortly after we were given a surprise visit at our house by some company personnel with long hair and wearing "spy guy" camera vests. They were giving our house a vulnerability assessment as a reason for the visit, but it was more of a sight seeing tour for them. The article in the paper had damaged our credibility considerably with the people of the local villages.

Vidakovic then said that all the Americans like us (ones that had the same type of mission) would be killed if anyone on the Hague war criminal list was arrested. He was told that our job was not to arrest anyone, but to facilitate communications between people like him and the SFOR headquarters. He seemed to ignore what we were telling him and went on to state that he could not even protect his people because if he left his compound wearing his uniform he believed we would arrest him. Vidakovic then made the first direct threat against our lives. He touched his pistol and said during the war he had personally killed many people and had no qualms about killing more. He said he would kill us if he wanted to, and that he could shoot us or have us beaten to death. Our interpreter was a little slow to translate this for us, but body language can be very loud in circumstances like this. He was convinced that he was on the secret indictment list that UN forces had been conducting snatch missions from. He assured us that he would never be taken alive should we decide to come after him. Again he told us that he could have us killed before we were able to get out of this room. Barney and I were reasonably sure that we were listening to a lot of frustration and anger mixed with a liberal amount of alcohol. Fairly certain that there was not a high level of immediate danger, but not willing to let matters escalate, I told Vidakovic that he would not kill us, and did he expect us to just sit there and listen to him threaten us? I reminded him we were there to discuss the reported incident in the village and we were trying to prevent this type of activity from taking place. He was having a hard time seeing us as a conduit between him and the SFOR headquarters. He had convinced himself that we were some type of secret hit squad and was acting like a man trapped. Barney reminded him we were Americans and we had the firepower of all of SFOR at our call. Also, that all of our people knew where we were, and if he started to do something so foolish, did he really think he would be able to leave this room? Now, Barney and I always carried a concealed weapon. The others in the room knew they had to assume we did also. Everyone, with maybe the exception of Vidakovic, knew that if a gun battle were to break out, everyone would lose. We had threatened that immediate air power and gunships were on standby, but in reality, no one knew exactly where we were or when we were due back. Barney and I had played poker before.

We were getting a lecture on how the SFOR treated the senior RS Army officers at check points and that they would begin to kill soldiers, rather than take these humiliations. Vidakovic told us the people were ready to rise against SFOR and that every hollow log in the woods had a rifle in it. He again accused us of being in his country to arrest war heroes that the "pro-Muslim American government" had placed on a secret list. He had worked himself up into quite a frenzy and had told us that we would all (all the teams like ours) be killed if anyone from the secret list was arrested.

It was getting late and we seemed to be at a Mexican Standoff. There was a very profound pause in the conversation while we eyeballed each other around the room and contemplated what the next step should be. Physical violence, while not the best choice, definitely seemed to be a possibility. Vidakovic was sweating intensely, his XO looked like he was computing long division in his head and the other two staff officers in the room just looked scared. Barney and I were pissed off, yet I was thinking about the ramifications from my own headquarters if this escalated. Should we survive a physical confrontation, I wondered if our careers would fare as well. Sandy was shrinking in both voice and stature, but she was holding up. After what seemed a very long time, the female officer brought in more coffee and as she placed the cups around the table, she was speaking in a lighthearted tone and smiling. It wasn't translated for us, but I'm sure it was something along the lines of a suggestion to stand down from red alert.

At this point the conversation turned and began to be much less hostile. The other staff officers in the room all seemed to physically loosen up and start breathing again. Up to that point it had been very tense. The Colonel suddenly wanted us to stay and drink with him and to have something to eat. We refused, saying we were expected to return to base. He than offered the services of his "aide-de-camp" for the night, to which the woman mildly objected, but looked towards us with something less than "no" in her expression. Maybe this was what she had said earlier and our own interpreter chose not to translate. Now everyone's fingers had backed off the triggers and Vidakovic had put away over 10 shots of 'slivo since we started. He began to focus his attention affectionately towards our interpreter and she was giving us her own signal that we should leave.

We began to prepare the way for our exit and after another thirty minutes we stood up and started for the door. Vidakovic again tried to persuade us to stay and even stood between us and the way out. We were all smiles at this point, but the underlying tension was there and I could feel it start to surface again as we were standing in the hallway wanting to push aside the drunken obstacle and cover the 300 meters that was still between us and our vehicle.

I had been watching and learning various customs of the region since I had been on this mission. One in particular that is very different from our own, is the cheek kissing that men share at different times. On an impulse I decided this would be a good time to play this trump card and take advantage of the momentary surprise.

As Vidakovic again began telling us why we should stay, I grabbed him by both shoulders and pulled his head down and kissed him on the forehead, stood him back up and out of the way, said good-bye and led our small team out of the house and towards the gate. Sandy appeared to be about to faint. She asked me why I did that and if I knew what I had done. Of course I said yes, and to be quiet and keep moving down the path. We could hear Vidakovic laughing in the house.

We told the guard to open the gate and once we checked the vehicle for any unwanted surprises, we got in and started for home. "What exactly were you talking about with the kiss thing?" I asked Sandy. I was thinking all the men around here do that and I thought she was going to bust on me for acting weird. She laughed a little nervously and said that, yes, men do kiss on the cheeks to say good-bye, but I had done something else. By kissing him on the forehead and then departing, I had basically told him I regarded him as a naughty child, and had forgiven him. By placing myself above him as his superior and doing so in front of his own subordinates, she thought we would not get off the compound. Sometimes things just have a way of working out. In retrospect I don't think either Barney or myself could have come up with a better way to not only defuse this particular situation, but to leave a good feeling for other SFOR soldiers, at least Americans, in this guy's mind in any future encounters. We sat quietly as Barney drove towards home for awhile. Suddenly I realized I was starving and we should try to find a place to eat. Of course, there are no restaurants open after midnight in the Republika Srpska countryside. I'd have to wait till we got home.

We continued to investigate during the next few days and it appeared that this raid did in fact happen. The small group could not be tied to any Federation unit and could only be labeled as independent terrorists or criminals. SFOR did increase their presence patrols through the area of the incident and no further reports of activities such as this were brought to our attention. It seems we passed the test from the liaison officer and also gained the respect and trust of several prominent figures within the area. Several other crises were thrust upon Fred and Barney as we did our part to accomplish our mission. Of course, that's always another story.