“I don’t know if this thing is going work,” says Army Captain Kirk Sessin, looking out on a sun-drenched valley near Glamoc, 100 miles southwest of Tuzla, Bosnia. A self-described “troop guy” rather than staff officer, Captain Sessin has been asked to predict the success of the multinational peace-enforcement effort begun here last December and led by U.S. troops from the First Armored Division based in Germany.
With six months invested in this war-torn country and six more to go, soldiers like Captain Sessin take no comfort in their pessimism. But many feel they know Bosnia well enough now to worry about long-term prospects for peace.
Captain Sessin, 37, stands beside rubble of what once might have been a popular way station in the former Yugoslavia. “This land was held by the Serbs until last fall when the Croats pushed them across here,” he says, drawing his arm up the mountain. “They planted mines in their wake and settled across this ridge line there. That’s why there are all those bunkers up there now.”
As a firing battery commander for two platoons of Ml09 howitzers, Captain Sessin and his men are here for five days of much-needed training. Conversation is punctuated by the sharp cracks of the 155 mm guns, which send 100-pound shells rumbling toward the hillside. Until two days ago. Captain Sessin’s troops had not fired live rounds in eight months. He hopes the exercise not only sharpens skills but also lifts spirits.
“Morale is starting to sink a little bit,” Captain Sessin says. “I mean, yeah, we talk about a year’s deployment, but it started to sink at the five-month mark. That’s when they really started getting low. This is going to help. Leave is helping too.”
U.S. soldiers this summer are, by turn, taking two weeks off, either returning to the States or going somewhere in Europe. Some return refreshed, others depressed. "That’s when it hits—they might be here another five or six months,” Captain Sessin says. “You’ve got to push them harder [through] day-to-day chores. In the Army, we’re usually Monday to Friday—now it’s seven days a week, 30 days a month.”
Most soldiers know they’re doing something important, even praiseworthy. They’ve stopped the killing for at least a year. But then what? Captain Sessin predicts the fighting between Bosnian Serbs, Muslims, and Croats will resume. “I don’t think it will be instantaneous, as soon as we leave,” he says. “It will flare up in a couple areas, and then it will spread like a fire.” Of course he hopes he’s wrong. "But the hate seems to run too deep,” he says. “I’ve met with some of their brigade commanders; I can see it when they talk.”
Captain Sessin also talks with a young boy, a Serb, who comes “down to the wire” at the battery’s camp near the town of Doboj. "He speaks English and we’ve made friends. I gave him a soccer ball my wife sent because he didn’t have one. He tells us things that happened in the war.”
Glamoc might be mistaken for foothills of the Colorado Rockies in early summer. Steep terrain gives way to miles of grassy plain, dotted now with blue and yellow wildflowers. An American eye imagines ski lifts and hiking trails—not war or ethnic cleansing. Yet the village behind Sessin, once bustling with life, is now abandoned. From a former Yugoslav MiG base farther down the valley, British forces manage time on the surrounding mountains for live-fire exercises for allied artillery and aircraft. Captain Sessin’s battery, part of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery, is attached to the Nordic Company, a coalition of Norwegian, Polish, Danish, and Swedish units. The experience brings both rewards and frustrations.
“Our job is to support the brigade with artillery fire, but right now they don’t need artillery fire,” says Captain Sessin. “I wish we could get some other missions get more tactically involved. The real- world-mission part is beginning to wear off.”
Captain Sessin’s battery is colocated with a Swedish infantry battalion and suffers by comparison. Unlike the Swedes, U.S. soldiers must wear helmets and flak jackets everywhere they go, are barred from consuming alcohol, and leave camp only on business and in four-vehicle convoys. “Also, the Swedes are here for six months. And that’s hard,” Captain Sessin says. It doesn’t help, he says, that U.S. soldiers, like most young Americans, “are spoiled. They’re always entertained and used to having all the luxuries. It’s almost like experiencing prison now.”
And for his own morale? “Mine’s great,” says Captain Sessin. “I’m doing stuff I would never get to do back in Germany.” Given its special assignment, his battery and support staff have grown from 100 soldiers to 140. “I think I’ve got the biggest firing battery in the United States Army.”
A veteran of the Gulf War, Captain Sessin says Bosnia is a different readiness challenge. When his battalion arrived in Saudi Arabia in August 1990, they had plenty of time and unlimited ammunition to prepare for war. “We were so much more proficient after six months,” he says. “If the unit’s proficiency was 10 [then],” he says, “it’s six now.” He suspects his battalion will need six to eight weeks of refresher training after Bosnia.
“And we won’t be hurting as bad as tank crewmen and Bradley [Fighting Vehicle] crewmen. They’ve got more tactical skills to learn,” he says. “Those degrade quickly.” Captain Sessin believes his soldiers would appreciate the mission more if they could mix with the local populace. “I really don’t think a lot of them know what impact they’re having around here,” he says. “But I understand. Everybody’s paranoid. There are a lot of bad guys out there.”