[*The following blog post is mirrored at The Liberty Zone and Brad’s Place and was written by Nicki Fellenzer and Brad Staggs together as a response to an article in the July 2007 issue of American Legion Magazine. The interviews included therein were conducted by Nicki and Brad at Camp Bondsteel, Kosova.]

We are members of the Army National Guard currently deployed to the province of Kosova with Multi-National Task Force (East), or MNTF (E). Our task force is made up not only of the National Guard, but the Army Reserve, the active Army and the Air Force. We come from various parts of the United States, including Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico and 23 other states. We are what is called “boots on the ground” Soldiers. We are here. We are witnesses to what is happening in Kosova, so what was published in the American Legion magazine in July of 2007 made us need to reply.

The American Legion Magazine ran an opinion piece in the July issue by a New York comedienne named Julia Gorin, whose writings have been published in a number of conservative publications, including Front Page Magazine and National Review Online. She is also a contributing editor to the Jewish World Review. Ms. Gorin may be a funny lady, but her commentary is filled with wild accusations, inaccuracies, distortions and downright lies that serve only to hurt our peacekeeping mission in Kosova and shed a negative light on the Soldiers who are carrying out said mission.

Ms. Gorin’s accusations include, but are not limited to:

• “A Serb a day is killed in Kosova.”
• Kosova Serbs live inside barbed-wire, NATO-guarded perimeters, beyond which they “dare not venture.”
• When shot by Albanians, NATO troops are directed to flee rather than fight back.
• Serbian nuns continue to be killed.
• Serbian churches and monasteries are destroyed.
• Albanians call U.N. and NATO “occupiers” and want them to get out.

“I can initially tell you that …a Serb being killed a day is not just a ghastly exaggeration, but an erroneous allegation,” says Sgt. Tara Vayda, an intelligence analyst at Camp Bondsteel, Kosova. According to Vayda, the worst ethnically-motivated violence that has occurred here during our stay in Kosova has been Kosova-Albanian teens throwing rocks at Kosova-Serbian-associated busses or a Serbian elderly couple.

While throwing rocks at people or busses is not an activity one would call desirable behavior on the part of the Albanian teens, it certainly does not constitute the murder of a Serb every day. Ms. Gorin’s claim is exactly what she denies it to be – an exaggeration at best and a downright lie at worst.

“Our mission in Kosova is to maintain a safe and secure environment in our area of responsibility in order to provide the stability that allows local governmental institutions to address and resolve the issues of self-governance and service to their residents, and to allow those residents to live their lives free of the fear of past conflicts,” says Col. Steven Scott, the Deputy Commander of Civil Military Operations for MNTF (E).

“We do this with a ‘boots on the ground’ presence everywhere in our sector; young Soldiers building and maintaining relationships with local leaders, shop owners, teachers and students, and folks going about their daily routines. We do this by engaging civil leadership and assisting them in their attempts at solving the vast problems they face every day. We do this through humanitarian assistance, whether improving infrastructure, or distributing the many, many donated goods we receive from our families and friends.”

According to Col. Scott, the Soldiers work to provide reassurance to the people of Kosova that bad things won't happen to them, and they work very hard to keep that commitment.

The only case that we could find of a Serbian Nun being killed in recent history actually happened in Serbia proper. On February 21, 2007, a Serbian Nun named Sister Serafima (Andjelka Mijailovic) was traveling on the Thessaloníki - Belgrade International train. She was given a ticket to a car which also held three Albanian men who were smoking. Due to the smoke, the Nun asked to be moved and was.

“Serafima was sitting in a train compartment near Presevo (southern Serbia), when three Albanian men had entered it. As she was bothered by the smoke, she asked the train official to be moved to another compartment. Being a nun, naturally she felt uncomfortable sitting with three men. Serafima was then transfered into the next compartment. That compartment was occupied by a woman passenger from Krusevac (Serbia). At about 9 p.m, Serafima’s fellow passenger went to get some sandwiches and when she returned, 8 to 10 minutes later, Serafima was gone,” says Serafima’s father.

“Around the same time, on Feb. 22, at 11 a.m, a shepherdess discovered the body of a nun in her habit (uniform), in the village Staro Selo. There was a pair of jeans next to her body. The body laid just few yards (6 meters) away from the railway tracks. My daughter did not wear jeans ever since she became a nun 10 years ago,” says Serafima’s father.

“She was found in her socks which were perfectly clean and spotless. Her boots were not found so it is suspected that those men had held her by the legs when they had thrown her off the train. It is not clear where were they hiding her body from Presevo to Staro Selo.” (If they had thrown her out in Presevo, the suspected murderers would almost certainly be classified as Albanians. Instead, they waited and threw her body when they passed the troubled Presevo Valley. Presevo Valley is located in southern Serbia proper, adjacent to Kosova province, and the Albanians want to secede this region and connect it to Serbian Kosova province and Greater Albania).

To this day, nobody has been charged with Sister Serafima’s murder. The assumption has been made automatically by those that want to believe it that it was the three Albanian men and that is the story that is being told. Again, there is no evidence of this.

Members of the Joint Implementation Commission in Kosova have a special mission. They work with the Serbian Armed Forces to enforce compliance of the Military Technical Agreement and UN Security Council Resolution 1244. They operate along the Administrative Boundary Line between Kosova and Serbia proper (or Uza Serbia, as the Serbs call it).

Their mission takes them throughout the Multi National Task Force (East)’s area of operations, and they encounter people from all walks of life. They have been guests at the homes of both Serbian and Albanian citizens of Kosova. Not one member of the JIC team has ever seen Serbian enclaves surrounded by barbed-wire, NATO-guarded perimeters.

Kosova Serbians are free to leave their enclaves, drive to their destinations, take vacations and walks. As a matter of fact, part of KFOR’s mission here in Kosova is to ensure freedom of movement of all people who live here.

First Lt. Chaplain Michael Wikstrom has traveled throughout Kosova and has developed relationships with the religious leaders of the Serbian Orthodox community. He concurs that in the MNTF (E) area of operations, no concentration camp-like conditions exist. He says the vast majority of the province is perfectly safe for Kosova Serbs to live and travel. He does see some areas of Kosova where Serbian Orthodox priests and nuns could not travel alone, and in those cases, KFOR troops do provide escort and protection.

It is difficult to say where Ms. Gorin is getting her erroneous information, or whether she’s simply using her rather fertile imagination as a substitute for checking facts. However, her claims of what, in essence, are NATO-run concentration camps are simply untrue.

In 2004, during the riots that took place in Kosova, some NATO troops were instructed not to return fire if fired upon. This, however, is not the case today, as Ms. Gorin claims. One lesson we learned from the 2004 riots is that we will do whatever is necessary to maintain a safe and secure environment in Kosova. We are not mandated to flee. We are not mandated not to return fire. We certainly will not use deadly force if the situation does not warrant it, or if lesser force can diffuse and control the situation. But to claim that we would not return fire, even if fired upon, is absurd and not grounded in any reality whatsoever.

Ms. Gorin continues to make a false and downright insulting claim that “NATO troops in Kosova, to which a contingent of 1,500 National Guardsmen was added in November, know to avoid doing any real policing that could result in a firefight.” Our Soldiers run continuous patrols in our area of operations – both day and night. They work tirelessly to assist and support the Kosova Police Service and UNMIK Police to disrupt criminal activities. They do not shy away from action when it’s warranted, and to imply otherwise is offensive to the courageous troops who sacrifice so much for this nation and this mission.

It is also patently false that due to NATO’s (and the National Guard’s) avoidance of incendiary situations “Serbian nuns continue to be killed and how Serbian property continues to be seized by Albanian squatters, how churches and monasteries continue to be destroyed, as Saudi-financed mosques take their place.”

According to our intelligence analysts, no Serbian nun has been killed in Kosova and no church or monastery has been destroyed in Kosova since 2004. Most of the activity against churches, says Vayda, is criminally, not ethnically motivated. The last incident of vandalism of a church in our area involved a broken window from a projectile being thrown four months ago. And reports confirm the last murder of a nun took place in February of this year – not in Kosova, but in Serbia proper – about 100 kilometers from Belgrade. While Albanian men are suspected in that murder, no one has been apprehended for the crime.

Wikstrom concurs. His contacts tell him the last time an act of violence was perpetrated against a nun or a priest in Kosova was in 2006, when some hoodlums threw rocks at a vehicle in which a Serbian Orthodox priest was traveling.

And there are more misrepresentations and outright lies. Gorin quotes a 2000 Washington Post article in order to paint the Kosova Liberation Army, or KLA, as a continuing influence in the region. She calls the KLA “violent, jihadist, narco-terrorist mafiosos” which “has continued arming itself in the event that the province isn’t granted independence this year.” The truth, according to those actually on the ground – those who know the truth – is quite different.

“[The] KLA is not alive and well. It no longer exists as a military organization,” says Multi-National Task Force (East) Chief of Staff, Col. Damon Igou. “However, there are legitimate government institutions that employ some of the former members of the KLA. The KPS (Kosova Police Service), and an organization similar to our National Guard, the KPC (Kosova Protection Corps). These organizations are multi-ethnic, professional and legitimate and employ many former members of the KLA that meet their rigorous standards.”

During the third week of July, two members of American Legion Post 178 from Millerton, N.Y., arrived in Kosova for a stay at Camp Bondsteel. Post Commander Lee Garay and post Treasurer Sid Byron came to Kosova in order to work with the War Veterans Association to help develop an American Legion-style organization, and based on Ms. Gorin’s piece, they didn’t know what to expect.

“I’ve never had the opportunity, and I’m glad I could come to see first-hand what the military does [in Kosova],” Garay says. “I was really impressed. First thing we did when we came out of the airport in Kosova… we stopped and had a game of soccer with some kids.”

Byron found out the truth before he got on the plane to Kosova. “We have a lot of bad press in our country – the media, radio and television,” Byron says. “So I immediately asked Sgt. Maj. Jenks [MNTF (E) Command Sgt. Maj.], by phone, what’s going on. I don’t believe too much of what I read.”

Garay knew very quickly what was exaggerated in the article Ms. Gorin wrote. “The stuff they put in the article… I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen a Serb being shot every day while I’m here, and I haven’t seen any Soldiers running from any fight either.”

“The American Legion should have vetted it much better than they did. They didn’t do it at all! This is too delicate a situation to add that kind of stuff to it,” Byron adds.

Most of the assertions that Gorin makes have no footnotes in order to show where she got her information. It appears as though most of her information came from a November 2005 report from the International Strategic Studies Association published in their Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy print journal entitled “Ignore at Peril: The Growing Cauldron of Kosova and Bosnia”.

Everywhere we go, we see smiling faces of children and adults who come up to us and thank us for the job we are doing here. Our Soldiers work closely with the Serbian Armed Forces, doing joint investigations, recons and patrols. The Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces in our sector has expressed his satisfaction at the work the National Guard has performed in conjunction with his troops and the level of cooperation that has been reached on both sides.

We are not politicians. We are Soldiers. We do our jobs to the best of our abilities, and we have kept the situation stable and secure in Kosova on our watch. To claim otherwise … to twist the facts, publish outright lies and accuse our brave troops of turning their backs on genocide that is allegedly going on right under our noses is unforgivable and unacceptable, as well as outrageous and disrespectful to those who serve.