| U.N. to investigate Kosovo village explosions that knocked 2 U.S. soldiers unconscious By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes European edition, Friday, August 2, 2002
For Sgts. Dominic Huggins and Jerry Burge, there was a lot of light. Then darkness.
“All I remember was the flash,” said Burge, who was briefly knocked unconscious along with Huggins early Wednesday morning as a house they were walking by in the village of Klokot, Kosovo, exploded.
“And lots of dust,” Burge added. “It didn’t feel like I was flying, but it didn’t feel like I was on the ground. Until I hit the ground.”
“I remember a flash,” Huggins said. “And that was it” — until he woke up with Lt. Col. Butch Botters, his task force commander, checking to see if he was OK.
After two nights at the hospital at Camp Bondsteel, Huggins — suffering from scrapes and bruises — could be released as early as Friday. Burge, with his neck in a brace and his left side still numb, might have to wait a bit longer.
Both soldiers were wearing their full battle gear when they were caught by the blast. Both credited their Kevlar jackets and helmets with helping to prevent further injury.
U.S. forces had just received the word that they could shed jackets and helmets Tuesday if the situation warranted it.
Command Sgt. Maj. John Calpena, the top enlisted soldier in the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, said none of the soldiers in his group who were moving through the area were wearing the extra protective gear until they heard the first explosion.
The word then went out: Put on the jackets and helmets. Immediately.
“It just shows the system is working,” said Maj. Mark Ballesteros, a Task Force Falcon spokesman. “We wear it when we need it.”
The two soldiers, members of the 3rd Platoon, Company B, from the Bamberg, Germany-based 54th Engineer Battalion, were on patrol in Klokot, a Serbian village that straddles the main road connecting the three main U.S. base camps. They were among a handful of patrols moving in the direction of the nearby village of Ballance to investigate an earlier explosion.
Huggins and Burge were walking near a group of five vacant homes near a cornfield. Others soldiers had stopped their Humvees on a dirt road close by, next to an elderly man’s home when explosions started tearing up homes around them, Calpena said.
He said the unidentified man approached him and told him there was an explosive device at his house with a timer attached.
“He asked me to come and disarm it,” Calpena said. “I told him that I wasn’t going to come and get it and he wasn’t going to go and get it.”
They all moved away and “then his house exploded ... we definitely saved his life.”
U.S. forces quickly responded to the initial reports of explosion, Calpena said. With the help of British, Finnish and Swedish forces that were gathered nearby for an exercise, soldiers quickly closed off the area.
A house-by-house search conducted when the sun came up Thursday turned up a few illegal weapons, but the only explosive device was a grenade. An explosives ordnance disposal team searched the bombed houses, but didn’t find any more devices.
Michael Steiner, the chief U.N. administrator for Kosovo, visited the site Thursday, then spoke briefly to a few dozen members of the local media.
He said it was lucky that no one was killed in the attacks.
“It’s a wanton act against the progress here in Kosovo,” he said. “It’s disgusting. And it’s directed against the interests of all Kosovars.”
Steiner said U.N. police and KFOR are conducting a joint investigation into the bombings. He said the United Nations would contribute $50,000 toward a fund to promote integration in the area.
Klokot is a predominantly Serbian village, with a scattering of ethnic Albanian residents. Three of the five homes in the area that Huggins and Burge were walking through were destroyed by explosions. The other two were untouched.
Those present couldn’t say who owned the three vacant homes, although a few members of the local media said the homes were reportedly built by Serbs who might have sold them to ethnic Albanians.
Stefen Feller, the U.N. police commissioner, said he didn’t want to speculate on the bombings.
“If you put the pieces together too early, you might be trapped in the wrong solution,” he said.
He said an investigative unit based in Gnjilane and forensics experts from his headquarters would work with the American KFOR contingent on the case.
“It’s very difficult to identify the people [responsible],” Steiner said. “It’s very difficult to find them. But the police and KFOR will do exactly that.” |
