As Novelty Fades, GIs in Bosnia Think of Home

Sgt. James DeBose, 29, has written his wife 11 letters since he arrived here a month ago. In the Posavina Corridor, the strategically sensitive area in northeastern Bosnia where he is posted, scarcely any mail has been delivered. There are no phones. No television. No radio.

“I don’t know if my wife is dead or alive,” said DeBose, a Houston native. “Is the car running? Are the kids OK? Do they miss their daddy?”

Almost a month after the vanguard of U.S. forces crossed the Sava River into Bosnia-Herzegovina, much of the novelty of the peacekeeping mission has worn off for the U.S. forces--about 12,000 out of a planned 20,000 troops--now stationed in the country.

The reporters and television cameras that once dogged their steps are gone and the hardships remain: having to bathe without running water; sitting thigh to thigh in outhouses built for three; eating packaged meals out of brown envelopes. The isolation, mud and cold have become grating. Wet boots seem to take longer to dry. Villagers who once beamed and waved now only nod.

The worst is not having an assignment, or pulling a dull one like guard duty. Then each hour bleeds into the next and soldiers can think of only one thing: home.

DeBose, who fell in love with his wife when they were teenagers, had just moved to Germany with her and their two toddlers when he learned that he was one of the thousands of American soldiers being shipped to Bosnia on a peacekeeping mission. His wife, who had never lived outside the United States, stayed in their new German home.

DeBose’s anxieties have stacked up: The house is a dozen miles from the American base, and she is unaccustomed to driving. What about the black ice on the roads? Did he warn her about that? If the car breaks down, DeBose, a mechanic, won’t be there to fix it. Is she regretting the move? Is she lonely?

“I have a tendency to worry,” said DeBose, his face smeared with grease. When he isn’t repairing Humvees or armored personnel carriers, he draws flowers and hearts on envelopes containing letters to his wife. The other soldiers tease him about acting like a newlywed.

“You been with her 14 years and you still do stuff like that?” one said in amazement.

“Yeah, I do,” said DeBose, who is on his first major deployment.

Time has a way of eating into soldiers. It makes them think of what they left behind and whom they will return to, the stuff they said and what they wish they had said.

When Spc. Chris Weldon, a Detroit native, shipped out, he said goodbye to his wife. But he didn’t say anything to his 19-month-old daughter, Lauren.

“I couldn’t do it,” said Weldon, 25, who drives a 5-ton cargo supply truck. “The easiest way for me to go away was just to kiss her and say, ‘See ya.’ ”

At home, he and his daughter had a bedtime ritual. Every evening, she would ask to be tickled, saying, “Night-night, Daddy. Please, soft tickles.”

Before he even reached Bosnia, Weldon got a letter from his wife telling him she had posted photos of him on a wall at Lauren’s eye level. Now before bed, Lauren addresses the photos: “Night-night, Daddy. Please, soft tickles.”

And in the morning, the little girl pads down the hall, telling her mother she wants to check her parents’ bedroom to see if her father has come home yet.

“A deployment like this makes me feel like I’m in prison. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and you can’t go home,” said Weldon. “You just have to roll with the punches and take what they give you.”

Lt. Kenneth McRae, 24, of Bruceville, Ind., tries not to think about being in Bosnia for the next year. Instead, he thinks about the time in chunks he can handle. He will staff a checkpoint for 10 days. Then he will have another mission. Another task.

McRae likes to think about showering, changing into clean clothes, slipping into a warm bed, having a frosty beer when he wants one. Or maybe just being alone, without the company of nine other men in a tent, walking without a buddy, driving without a convoy of four military vehicles. “Everywhere we go, there’s no time alone,” McRae said. “You want simple stuff--football scores, something aside from sitting in a checkpoint hours a day.”

McRae likes to watch the children he sees in Bosnia. It reminds him of how different their childhood has been from his own, when he would ride his bike to the general store to buy candy. Here, there are no playgrounds, no soccer fields.

“It makes you feel good to drive through the towns and see the little kids wave,” he said. “It makes you feel a little better as you are freezing your butt in the turret” of a Bradley fighting vehicle.

Sgt. Daniel Jackson, 29, of Atlanta fought in the Persian Gulf War. He knows how a deployment can grind on and on, how something like the weather can become a major factor in determining whether troops have a good or bad day. Jackson, a tank commander, considers himself lucky. He is supposed to leave Bosnia in March to take up his new post as a drill sergeant at Ft. Knox in Kentucky. He marks off every day on his pocket calendar.

Before long, he will return to his wife and their daughters, Destiny, 1, and Fantasia, 2.

When he left home, Destiny was eating with her hands. But soon, Jackson figures, she will be eating with a spoon. He only hopes he gets back in time to catch the change. The worst part, though, is thinking she won’t know him.

“She might cry,” he speculated. “It’ll take a while for her to get used to me.”

Now, Jackson imagines his daughter is asking his wife over and over, “Where’s Daddy?”

“My wife will show her pictures of soldiers on TV and say, ‘Daddy is there,’ ” Jackson said. And he envisions the little girl being placated, thinking every man she sees in uniform is her father.

Jackson fondly recalls the festivities and parades when he returned from Saudi Arabia. This mission, though, is so different. “Here, I don’t know. After one year, will there be a celebration?” he asked. “How will the U.S. look at it?”