(Click here for appropriate Bosnia greeting audio file)

Assembled, written, and photographed by CW4 David Rosenthal

We wound up leaving the U. S. about a month before our presence in Bosnia was required, largely the result of a decision by someone to ship the aircraft ahead of schedule. We landed at Eagle Base on 27 August 1998. This was the "Army side" of the major U.S. installation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, near the city of Tuzla in the northeastern portion of that country and, once there, found ourselves crammed into temporary storage in transient tents.

Plans called for our being housed in a "soon-to-be-built" living area adjacent to the hospital but, since we'd arrived so early, the place was just a recently bulldozed forest, now just a huge tangle of debris. The story at that time was that everything would be finished in a month. But at the end of September, we were still stuffed into storage tents and our future living area remained an empty lot (but they said they were working on it).

But as October groaned along, things began happening and, all of a sudden, structures began popping up.

These new plywood palaces have sheetrock interior walls, rather than the straight, unfinished wood like most of the other living quarters. They're also built around bathroom modules called "ablution units" with everything under one big roof. This helps when you want to make a middle-of-the-night visit and thus don't have to slog through the snow for a few hundred feet.

Fortunately these new units have industrially sized 380 Volt, three-phase electric water heaters. This means they come in nice large boxes and I was able to snag one right away as a retirement home.

Some of our pilots, still marooned in our tent Universe, dissipate excess energy in what appears a game of chance. But savvy viewers will identify the players and realize this was simply another study session to pursue mastery of some of the subtler nuances of the Art of Military Life.

Our tent's convenient location adjacent to the leaking sewer line from the ablution unit (modular shower and toilet facility) and the clouds of disease-laden insects the water helped to spawn gave CW3 Art Laguna an opportunity to experience total self-encasement by donning and living inside personal mosquito-netting. Between this, Art's completely netted cot, and his continuous fly-swatter-equipped pursuit of the never-ending supply of flying and crawling organisms, it provided him a raison d'etre we could all emulate.

KCRA reporter Tana Castro and cameraman Hal Sloan spent several days with us here at Tuzla where they did everything from fly to actually staying in tents to see how we live (well, their tent was probably less crowded than ours). They seemed to enjoy themselves and we're hoping they'll send us some tapes of the video they produce, once back in Sacramento.

To commemorate Channel 3's visit, SFC Don Franklin (stuffing down the hamburger) got the idea to have a barbecue down at our Maintenance area at the flight line.

We invited our MEDEVAC partners, the Swedish Medcoy ("Medical Company"), and we all had a great time.

Inside Quality Control, SSG's Scott Cramer and Kim Powell bathe in the luxuriant warmth of many glowing computer monitors--something to be fondly sought after, once the weather turns cold. This is beginning to happen quickly now.

Stormy, rainy, foggy weather is getting lots more common now as October wanes.

Right now, we can only hang around Flight Operations, trying to stay out of the way. The furniture isn't particularly elegant but it gives us a good view of people coming and going. But we're taking turns making a few extra bucks rattling some coins in the bottom of a paper cup as people file by. We're hoping to raise enough money to bribe the Sprint guys here to install some more Internet connections.

Sometimes, we can get on the "communal computer" to check e-mail but we can't stay on too long since other people want to use it. Besides, it only has a dial-up modem connection to access the net so trying your luck at solitaire is lots more productive than trying to log into "hotmail." And going outside simply isn't the thrill it used to be since it rains much more often now. So we've organized a contest where the winner of the "guess the number of rocks in the parking lot gravel pile" gets a whole undisturbed hour sitting on the chair with the cushion that still has padding inside.

The original plan was for us to have an "official" First-Up hut, quiet and away from all the activity. It was supposed to have sleeping areas where crews could get quality rest, a TV, and Internet access--like the active-Army unit we replaced enjoyed. But the Guard here keeps a low profile and, from what they're telling us, there are no plans to change.

At 3:00 AM, as you lie awake on your bare mattress, listening to the generator's incessant drone, filthy and unable to bathe, wondering how you'll stay awake or how long you might be allowed to sit in any given chair tomorrow, you have plenty of time to count the ways things could be worse.

But no matter WHAT happens, MEDEVAC missions and training c ontinues and, at night, we use Night Vision Goggles. This is what it looks like through these fascinating devices as CW3 Jeff Crandall (on top) and SSG J. J. Moore do a midnight pose for me after we did some NVG-aided terrain flight in the mountains to the south of Tuzla. These mountains, by the way, bear a very close resemblance to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

The weather still gets incredibly nice and that's unusual for Europe. We use this coal-fired power plant west of the city of Tuzla as a checkpoint going into and out of Tuzla AFB. The city is in the background to the left and the base several miles away in the background to the right.

Tuzla experiences an average of 227 fog days each year so lots of the flying we'll do will look like this.

So another day ends in romantic, quaint, less-than-exciting Tuzla.