By Theresa Agovino, Globe Correspondent, 11/10/99

                      AMP BONDSTEEL, Yugoslavia - ''It was God and President
                      Clinton who helped Kosovo,'' declared Ejup Kelmendi, an Albanian
                  selling clothes in a busy covered market in Pristina.

                  Like many Albanians, Kelmendi, 30, credits the United States with leading
                  the NATO airstrikes that halted the Serb campaign of ''ethnic cleansing''
                  against Kosovo Albanians.

                  ''We Albanians love Clinton,'' he said. ''He will receive a welcome here like
                  nowhere else he has ever been before.''

                  The welcome, of course, depends on whether Clinton ventures off the Army
                  base during a likely visit to US troops here in two weeks. The 7,619
                  Americans are part of a 50,000-strong NATO-led force here, and are also
                  warmly regarded by the Albanians.

                  Yet many of the troops who thought they were being sent to protect the
                  Albanians now spend much of their time guarding Serbs. Since Kosovo
                  became an international protectorate last June, Serbs have been the victims
                  of countless attacks by Albanians bent on revenge.

                  There are about 37,000 Serbs in the 2,000 square kilometers in
                  southeastern Kosovo controlled by the US military. These days American
                  soldiers can be found shivering in guard huts outside Serb homes or trundling
                  behind Serb farmers as they plow their land.

                  Every Sunday, American soldiers escort Serbs to two gas stations so they
                  can purchase fuel without fear of being attacked. As lines of cars and
                  tractors wait for fuel, the air is thick with impatience and tension. Staff
                  Sergeant Frederick Tripp, 28, of Somerset, Mass., screams at the Albanian
                  attendant, who has been letting Albanians circumvent the line. He orders a
                  vehicle to block the entrance until the problem is solved.

                  ''I'm not really angry. This is just really frustrating sometimes,'' Tripp said.
                  ''We have to be forceful to remind them we're in charge.

                  ''But I feel we are making a difference here. We are keeping these people
                  alive,'' he said, referring to the Serbs.

                  While they are appreciative of the protection, most Serbs don't trust the US
                  soldiers, for the same reason many Albanians adore them.

                  ''They bombed us, so we don't completely love them, but if they weren't
                  here we'd all have disappeared,'' said Zivojan Jorjevic, 39, an unemployed
                  factory worker waiting for his turn to buy gas. ''Even with the Americans
                  here we are not free like the Albanians. We have no freedom of movement.''

                  The mission isn't quite what the American soldiers had in mind when they
                  enlisted, though many say the tedious police work they do now is preferable
                  to the violence they encountered when they first arrived.

                  The brutality of the war has shocked many of the soldiers, especially those
                  who were never previously deployed. Hospitals reserved for soldiers were
                  treating civilians in danger of losing their limbs or their lives. One patient was
                  a 2-year-old girl who had been shot in the liver by a sniper while playing
                  hide-and-seek.

                  ''You wonder how anyone could do that to a child,'' said Dr. Jay Allen, a
                  family practitioner and the father of six. ''I've seen things I've never seen
                  before.''

                  Camp Bondsteel sits in a 740-acre dustbowl. Dump trucks and tractors are
                  everywhere as construction continues on offices, a permanent hospital, a
                  movie theater and an ammunition site. The size of the base has led to
                  speculation that the US government is planning to make the facility
                  permanent, but US representatives say that is not the case.

                  ''We just don't know how long we will be here,'' said Shawn Sullivan,
                  political adviser to General Craig Peterson, Camp Bondsteel's commanding
                  officer.

                  This story ran on page A43 of the Boston Globe on 11/10/99.