How many from IFOR?

I was stationed 1st Armored Div in Germany when President Clinton announced that 1st AD would be going (my unit had been training to go since the beginning of September 95). I never believed for one second that we would only be there for a year. I told my buddy that DoD has never been to an Airfield they wanted to give up...he didn't believe me. In April 96 we started pouring concrete...that was all the confirmation I needed.

I remember. My MP platoon was the first unit to cross the Sava river with the force provider package, a bunch of civilian trucks with the supplies for base camps. We knew President Clinton was wrong about the one year thing. We also knew that we would be outside the base after dark. We knew our mission and we were proud to help the locals reclaim their homes and villages. It was an interesting year and educational for a fairly new squad leader. I am proud of being a part of IFOR.

Between the mid nineties into the later two thousands, 10th SFG(A) served in various roles and capacities throughout all three portions which jelled into what is now Bosnia Herzegovina (BH). Other than some CIF operations, I had the pleasure of serving three separate six month deployments as a Joint Commissioned Observer (JCO) in BH. In a nutshell, our mission as JCO's was to be a functional conduit between 'Big Army' and the key players in stabilizing and rebuilding post war BH. We would accomplish this by deploying a Special Forces company C2 element (SOCCE) into Sarajevo with it's ODA's inserted into key civilian communities in all three factions portions of BH. I was in one Federation (Bosniac) city named Vares and two RS (Republika Srpska / Serbian) cities named Vlasenica and Zvornik.

We worked in two man teams where we facilitated meeting between major US Army command elements all the way down to company level command elements and key leadership in the current military and civilian leaders of our areas of responsibility. In overseeing these meetings, we ensured that the US Army and BH infrastructure and military worked together to rebuild a functional relationship during the rebuilding of a nation through the fragile peace accords which were in place and constantly challenged for one-upmanship in the three factions desire for more land and control.

We lived in contracted civilian housing, imbedded in the civilian communities, and I'd like to believe that we helped win the hearts and minds of the local populous during the rebuilding of a nation. Traveling in a low profile with no visible weapons helped in the locals accept us, trust us to whatever degree we could be accepted, and establish report with key players in negotiating and keeping a fragile peace. It didn't always go well, especially when President Clinton began lobbing cruise missiles right across the Drina river into Serbia proper, but we did what we could to keep the peace.

These deployments were THE most valuable and treasured Foreign Internal Defense (FID) missions that I had the pleasure to be associated with in my twenty two plus year SF career, and I can honestly say that we did make a difference.

De Oppresso Liber,

JC Hill