126th Med Co Album

126th Med Co (AA) Album

Some Snapshots from the 126th Medical Company

On 13 August 1998, the 126th Med Co got activated to be sent to Bosnia. We're there now and what you will see below will change as we continue moving through the 270 days for which we were put on active duty.

Assembled, written, and photographed by CW4 David A. Rosenthal

December 1998-January 1999: The Camp McGovern Adventure

Some of our people (two aircraft and crews) were recently sent to provide MEDEVAC support at Camp McGovern (no, not named after Senator George of presidential candidate fame, rather another McGovern who was a Korean War hero). Located about 35 miles north of Tuzla, McGovern is a sort of Bosnian "garden spot," sitting on the outskirts of the city of Brcko (pronounced "BIRCH-ko"). This town, a Bosnian Serb "stronghold," near where the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia come together, was hotly contested during the 1992-95 war. Brcko is now a critical piece of the political jigsaw puzzle as the former warring factions here struggle to reorganize the region. By the way, that's me on the far left in the photo.

But all that hardly matters to us inside the wire. Here in the "garden," we have two of the critical ingredients: water and soil...

They tell us the plant and vegetable part comes later...

Yes, mud is indeed the operant concept here.
But, as you can see, the inmates surely work it into their everday lives.

This power-spray boot-washer sits outside the
Dining FACility (DFAC). It has to be shoveled
out several times a day.

But it's wintertime and, with our aircraft always out in the weather, we also experience...

And if you get tired of the ice, just wait a day or so.

But then it's all not mud, ice, and snow here.

	There are exciting activities. Like exploring the row upon row of Sea-huts that make you feel every bit as much at home as if you were on the lookout for COL Klink or Sergeant Schultz at Stalag 13.
Or visiting with the Fire Department as our resident firefighter, CW4 Bob Nance, does as he briefs them about the crash rescue aspects of the Blackhawk.
	And you can always watch the construction crews work on new Gulag cells (those gray cylindrical objects are filled with dirt to provide blast protection).
Perhaps even visit the Fun Zone, our combination PX, video rental store, souvenir shop, coffee house, Robin Hood sandwich concession, and laundry. The laundry part seems to be the best bet as you can tell from the long line waiting to drop off or pick up clothes.

Of course the **BIG** news in recent days was the visit by rock legends Hootie and the Blowfish who stopped by to have lunch in our DFAC on their way to Tuzla for a big concert there that night.

But life in Camp McGovern isn't only the wild, never-ending, hedonistic frenzy you might have read about in the tabloids. There is a keen awareness of the cycles of nature here. At times, I'm told you can actually see parts of the sky.

Dawn in the Gulag can be striking and, as it gets cold and the mud starts to freeze, the ice crystals can be dramatic.

And when the snow finally melts again, the moat reappears around the aircraft, completing another of nature's full circles.

Flying out of McGovern is surely something we can do.

Ceilings and visibility in the Camp McGovern neighborhood are usually better due to the relative openness of the terrain and constant movement of air...

...as opposed to the mountainous, relatively stagnant region surrounding Tuzla where their weather turns out to be somewhat less favorable this time of year.

Actually, we're seeing that McGovern is often the only location where the weather gets sufficiently good to launch a MEDEVAC aircraft so our being here represents a valuable asset to everyone.

Now, if we could only get decent Internet service plumbed to our little Flight Operations...

The changes the shifting calendar has brought to the countryside have been dramatic, as evidenced by these two photos of the entrance to the "Tuzla Bowl." The smoke and steam comes from the large, coal-fired power plant that supplies the region with electricity. The "bowl" is where Eagle Base is located and lies out of sight behind and to the right of the plant. The first shot was taken in early September, the second in mid-December.

So it's Christmas season at good old Camp McGovern and, the way things move around here, chances are the decorations will still be up well into January.

Our little group of California/Tuzla exiles here were the first ones to put up our Christmas lights--and the only ones until people began encountering them as they went by at night. Soon more decorations popped up at various places in the compound.

We surely wish everyone a joyous holiday season and will be especially happy to see Christmas Day since it marks the halfway point in our nine-month odyssey through today's active Army.

So that's it from me from here for now (the latter half of December 1998). Drop me an e-mail and let me know what you think of the page. But our Internet feed right now borders on the truly abysmal with us having to dial into a long-distance server with a best-case baud-rate of 4800 bps, so have patience...

The address is n6tst@ridgenet.net.

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