Operation Joint Guard:
Bosnia and Croatia

Flags from left to right: Bosnia, NATO, Croatia

I was fat, dumb & happy after I left active duty in January of 1996.  I was a full-time student at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, making slow but steady progress towards my history degree.  For extra money and benefits (and also to stay in the military, at least a little) I was serving in an Army Reserve Military Police detachment at Fort Bragg (my last active duty station.)  Well, it was too good to last long:  After just more than 18 months and three semesters of college, my reserve unit was mobilized in support of Operation Joint Guard, the US military mission in Bosnia and Croatia.  My detachment, Det 1, 2125th Garrison Support Unit (GSU) was absorbed into the 805th Military Police Company out of Raleigh, North Carolina.  We were activated on August 19, 1997, spent 2 months training at the military hell-holes of Fort Benning, GA and Ft Polk, LA, and in late October, we deployed to Taszar Airbase in Hungary, location of the Intermediate Staging Base (ISB.)  The 805th's mission was to provide law enforcement at the ISB (which kept us busy because it was the only place in the whole theater where American GI's were allowed to drink alcohol) and also to provide convoy escorts into Croatia and Bosnia.  

I took these photos on Convoy Support missions.  

Above:  At Checkpoint Mike in Nasice, Croatia, in a blizzard in December of '97.  I'm not actually smiling, I'm gritting my teeth and saying "hurry up and take the damned picture."  Showing more common sense by staying inside is SPC David Randolph of Cary, NC. (Photo by SPC David May.)

Below:  On a more somber note, this house was one of many destroyed structures still remaining in Croatia 7 years after the civil war ended here.  

Above: Preparing to escort a HETT Convoy to Croatia. (HETT =  Heavy Equipment Transporting Truck -- a tank transporter) (photo by Sgt John Adams)

Below: At Holding Area Dragon (AKA Convoy  Support Center Virovitica) preparing to escort another convoy.  Normally we would only escort convoys to the CSC, but in this case, we had to take it all the way down to our base in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, on the Bosnian border.  

 Don't I look cocky? Little did I know that an hour after this photo was taken, I'd have the convoy hopelessly lost on a dirt road and have to call for help!  Read all about it Here...(photo by ?)

Brcko (pronounced "BIRCH-ko"), located in the Fictional Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina (don't believe the propaganda about Bosnia being "one nation."  It's no more "one nation" than Germany was when it was divided into East and West.  For that matter, it's no more "one nation" than Korea or Cyprus are today.)  

Brcko is claimed by all three factions, but is actually in a country called Republika Srpska, or the Serbian Republic....Or as I like to refer to it, 'the Republic Formerly Known as Yugoslavia.'

Above picture is the approach to Brcko from the Croatian border town of Gunija.

Below: Downtown Brcko.

Above: Sign at the Croatian end of the Brcko bridge. Obviously meant to make any of the warring parties think twice before trifling with SFOR.

Below: Minefields are common in Eastern Slavonia, the Northeastern section of Croatia that was, until late 1997, occupied by Serbia.

The Above and below pictures were taken at Holding Area Knight (CSC Magadenovac) in Croatia, where we used to hand off our Bosnia-bound convoys. In the upper picture, a photo with one of the Air Force SP's who went down with us (I am in the middle.) (photo by ?)

In the photo below, we escorted the LA Lakers Cheerleader's bus. When we stopped at the holding area, they wanted to see our HUMMWV's and posed for this picture.

All images © by Martin Albright, 1998-2001. All rights reserved.