CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo - The U.S. Army base going up here is
                   one of the most startling sights in the Balkans.

                   The soldier city - complete with a hospital, a heliport, two chapels, two
                   gymnasiums, a recreation center, a food court and a sewage treatment
                   plant - is being sculpted out of a hilltop pasture.

                   The 700-acre community isn't exactly Mayberry, given the bomb shelters
                   and guard towers. But at a time when the Army is having trouble recruiting
                   and retaining enough soldiers, officials say a touch of home and some
                   comforts help.

                   Barracks are being finished inside with drywall. They are fully wired for the
                   soldiers' TVs and boom boxes and have electric heat and air conditioning.

                   "We need to get these guys pumping iron and licking ice cream cones,
                   whatever they want to do" when not on duty, says Col. Robert McClure,
                   commander of the 1st Infantry Division engineers.

                   As U.S. government officials come to the realization that Kosovo's
                   recovery from an ethnic war is going to require a long-term commitment,
                   the military is following the lesson it learned after the Bosnia crisis: It's
                   quickly building a home-like environment for its troops, so they can better
                   tolerate being away from the comforts of the USA.

                   U.S. and NATO jets pounded targets in Yugoslavia for 78 days this
                   spring to stop Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from evicting ethnic
                   Albanians from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

                   After Milosevic's troops withdrew from Kosovo, international
                   peacekeeping forces moved in to try to resolve ethnic differences between
                   the country's Serb and ethnic Albanian populations.

                   The ambitious military construction in Kosovo, which is expected to cost
                   the United States $200 million, is unusual, especially at the start of a
                   mission. The Army usually builds up gradually.

                   But, driven by the certainty of a hard winter and the probability that
                   Kosovo will be a long-term problem, the Army has its engineers, Navy
                   Seabees, contractors and more than 1,000 local tradesmen sculpting the
                   landscape, grading roads, banging nails and hooking up utilities.

                   Most of the roughly 5,000 troops here, near the city of Urosevac, and
                   another 2,000 at a second base camp 15 miles east in Gnjilane, will be out
                   of their tents by Oct. 1.

                   "It'll be nice if they ever get it done. Better than living in the trucks," said
                   Spc. Kevin Sigafoos, 24, of Billings, Mont.

                   There's nothing fancy about the architecture. Nearly all the buildings are a
                   96-by-32-foot variation on what the military calls the SEA Hut, for South
                   East Asia Hut, wood frame structures first used during the Vietnam War.
                   All dimensions are multiples of 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood. Tin covers
                   the roofs.

                   The buildings don't have permanent foundations. Instead, they are built on
                   concrete pads that can be removed at mission's end, whether that's in a
                   year or five years.

                   The base already is providing a boost to the local economy, where
                   unemployment is near 100%.

                   Construction jobs, most paying less than $2 per hour, have gone to more
                   than 1,000 local workers under the direction of Brown & Root Services
                   Corp., a U.S.-based contractor.

                   Hundreds of Kosovars also work as cooks, launderers, translators and
                   other assistants, allowing the soldiers to focus on their peacekeeping
                   mission. Both Serbs and ethnic Albanians are being hired in a show of
                   U.S. ethnic neutrality.

                   Much of the plumbing, electrical and other supplies must be shipped from
                   elsewhere in Europe. But some raw materials are available locally, and the
                   people have responded quickly to deliver.

                   The demand for gravel alone is staggering. Officials estimate that half a
                   million cubic yards will be needed here at Bondsteel, enough to pave a
                   two-lane road from Kansas City to St. Louis. The Kosovars have been
                   delivering it from a nearby quarry in everything from Mercedes trucks to
                   communist-era farm wagons.

                   "It's amazing what capitalism will do," McClure says.

                   At Gnjilane, the base camp is on the site of an old Yugoslav army
                   barracks, and the Navy Seabees are overseeing construction. Petty
                   Officer First Class Jim Meyer, a senior builder, says the hot, dusty
                   conditions are a pleasure compared to Somalia, where he worked in
                   1993. "Nobody's shooting at us; that's kind of nice."

                   The project has thrust many of the young soldiers and sailors into
                   supervisory positions, says Gerald Romero, the Command Master Chief
                   Petty Officer of the Seabee Construction Battalion 3 from Port Hueneme,
                   Calif.

                   "We might have an 18- or 19-year-old, and all of a sudden, he's in charge
                   of three or four Albanian workers," teaching them the American way of
                   doing things, Romero said. "Our guys really enjoy it."

                   Seaman Kody Schuyler, 19, said the housing project is a little tame.

                   "I had more fun in Albania," he said, where the Seabees were building
                   roads.