Thursday July 15, 1999

Hi Guys,

I’m doing OK. I’m here in Kosovo in a town called Gnjilane. We have taken over a Serbian Army post that was half destroyed during the air campaign. We sleep in tents and take cold showers. The food is package MREs(meal ready to eat). They’re not too bad, but real food would be nice.

This is a very unstable area. We are put here in the middle between a rock and a hard place. The Serbs hate us and the Albanians hate the Serbs and the KLA hates us and the Serbs. We are here to keep the peace, but every day they kill each other or burn some houses. As many as 14 burned in this town just in one night. Almost every night a firefight breaks out. We have our tanks and our snipers on rooftops. Soldiers are patrolling the streets and bunkers have been built on the street corners. This is a war zone, much more dangerous than during Desert Storm.

As we traveled into Kosovo in our convoy all I could see was poor people riding in horse or tractor drawn carts waving at us and yelling "NATO" and "I love you American". We went through towns and had to stop in some places. When we did we were always surrounded by kids asking for food, giving us flowers and sunflower seeds. One little girl, about 5 years old, grabbed my hand, kissed it and said "Thank you. I love America" in very broken English. I almost cried. From then on I began to feel like maybe I am making a difference, for future generations.

Most of the houses are burned out. All you see is broken windows and charred walls. There are gunshots from
time to time and fires burn all over. On the 4th of July we worked, but we had a barbeque so that was OK. As I
write this two are dead. Albanians. We have gunfire all inside the town. I’m on the base. We have Apache
helicopters flying around looking for snipers. Our sniper hit one in a car and he’s lying in a field. I am monitoring the radio and hearing a lot of activity. Today the Marines pulled out and I guess they are testing us. So much for fixing trucks. We are now on full alert and trying to flush out the snipers. We completed plowing the fields surrounding our base for mines. We tore up two M1A2 tanks in doing so, but found no mines. We have found hundreds of weapons, bombs and land mines which we have destroyed. Another day, another house fire. As I see it, peace will not be here ever. When you find someone face down with three shots in the head you realize that the person doing the killing will kill again and he must have a vendetta.

We had a visit from General Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with General Clark and General Haddock. We sat down and had dinner with them. I took more photos, it was pretty cool. As I listen to the radio on the current situation I am hearing a report of automatic weapons being fired. Also today a bomb blew up, killed 4 and injured 14, all non-US. We are looking for a white VW. House raids were conducted. Weapons were taken and confiscated. Also drugs were found. I am going to sleep early tonight. Its midnight.

Love to everyone, Joe.