For Some GIs, Bosnia Is a Big Minefield

Just before shipping out to Bosnia, Sgt. Mark Williams--a combat engineer trained to clear mines--videotaped a 45-minute message for his parents and sisters to watch in case he is killed here.

“Realistically, somebody from this task force is not coming back,” said the 25-year-old Connecticut native who is patrolling the Posavina Corridor, the most likely flash point and the most heavily mined area in the American sector of northern Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Since Williams knew his job would be to help clear the estimated 3 million to 8 million mines embedded in the Bosnian countryside, he prepared for the possibility that his duty might claim his life.

Facing the video camera, Williams got embarrassed when he realized that tears were streaming down his face--his four younger sisters had never seen their big brother cry. He told his family that if he was killed, he wanted the proceeds from his $200,000 life insurance policy to help pay for college for his sisters.

“I had never told my father that I loved him--so I told him,” Williams said. “I told my mother and my sisters that they shouldn’t mourn for me and that if something did happen to me, that I had done my best.”

During the first weeks of the peacekeeping mission led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, U.S. Army officers have sought to minimize the risk to soldiers like Williams by insisting that the three previously warring factions in Bosnia--the Muslims, Serbs and Croats--remove their own mines while U.S. forces provide security. All sides have agreed.

“American soldiers should feel safe here, as if they were home, because peace is in our interest,” said Col. Guzvic Slavko, a deputy corps commander with the Bosnian Serb army.

Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat soldiers have begun what will be a long process of identifying and removing mines in the Posavina Corridor along the main north-south route traveling from Orasje, near the Sava River in the north, to Tuzla, where U.S. forces are based.

“I expected to do a lot more with mines, but it’s a relief to know that the [former combatants] are actually helping clear, because that would have been a significant mission for our guys,” said Capt. Carlos Perez Jr., commander of the 16th Engineer Brigade’s C Company, the first combat engineer company to be deployed in Bosnia. “Local forces are making an effort to mark and move their own stuff.”

Even so, the risk is constant, particularly, say Perez and other Army officials, for combat engineers, known as “sappers.” They are not the troops sitting in tanks with flags unfurled as news cameras roll. Before U.S. troops travel a route cleared by local forces, it is the sappers who ensure it is safe. If there is a front line during a peacekeeping mission, the combat engineers are on it.

Only a week ago, the Americans were slapped with a harsh reminder of the hidden dangers in this snow-covered land when a Humvee driver was injured after driving over a mine on an unapproved secondary road. After the incident, Serbian soldiers cleared away four unexploded mines from around the demolished Humvee.

Because battle lines changed frequently during 3 1/2 years of fierce fighting, it has been impossible for local forces to track all the mines. One, for instance, was discovered just one yard from the road after U.S. combat engineers widened the route to accommodate the military convoys flowing southward.

Local forces will focus first on areas used by pedestrians and vehicles--not the fields and wide swaths of land that are dotted with mines and occasionally marked with crude wooden signs that sometimes bear a skull and crossbones.

Recently, a U.S. helicopter pilot facing possible engine problems was forced to make an emergency landing in the middle of what had been the scene of heavy fighting in the Posavina Corridor. The pilot landed on an asphalt road, but the area immediately surrounding the helicopter was pitted with mines. Williams and several others volunteered to rescue the pilot.

“If you’re trapped in a minefield, you want somebody coming after you as fast as possible,” Williams said later. “I’ve trained so many years to do this. I’m a combat engineer. It’s my job. It’s what I do.”

In this case, however, no rescue was necessary because the pilot was able to restart his engine and fly to safety. But the point was clear to all soldiers: No matter how rigorously Army officials try to avoid the hazards of mines, the combat engineers will play a critical role.

“Combat engineers pride themselves on creating conditions for the armored and infantry guys to be successful,” said Col. Steven R. Hawkins, commander of the 1st Armored Division’s Engineer Brigade. “They are like the linemen on a football team; they create the holes for the infantry to get in.”

The reaction was mostly favorable as word spread among the sappers that Serbs and Croats had begun removing mines in the Posavina Corridor.

“We train for this, but it certainly isn’t going to break my heart if we don’t have to clear,” said Staff Sgt. Robert Rowse, 27, of Binghamton, N.Y.

Others said they believe they will see plenty of action, particularly after the ground thaws and the snow disappears. And a few chafed at being reined in.

“This really stinks--it’s my job to clear the mines, and that’s what I ought to be doing,” said Spc. Steven “Moose” Rhonomus, a 24-year-old Hilliard, Ohio, native who drives a large, blade-wielding vehicle that is the first to travel across an area believed to be cleared.

Williams too, while conceding that he felt relieved, said: “It’s frustrating. I’ve trained so many years to do this; when someone else does it, I feel left out, even though it’s dangerous.”

Williams, who joined the Army five years ago, has busied himself in recent days creating another video message for his family. This one shows the tent that he shares with 10 other soldiers. There’s the outdoor shower that he set up in below-freezing temperatures after being unable to bathe for three weeks. And there are the trays of hot food--when there is hot food--and the packets of dehydrated meals when nothing cooked is available.

“I wanted to show them how I live. We’re not pampered--we’re soldiers,” Williams said. “It’s like a log, a journal. The day it stops, my father will know that on this day I went out on a mission. . . .”