INNOCENTS ABROAD

In Bosnia's muddy, mine-infested combat zones, young American soldiers are learning the trials—and the rewards—of keeping an uncertain peace. At the base known as Shark City, near Tuzla, HARRY BENSON documents the daily life of Echo Company's sappers and sharpshooters, its captains and its cooks

'Welcome to Tuzla. It's like Pittsburgh without a football team."

The jokey, unmistakably American voice of a U.S. soldier is one of the first sounds that greets us as we step off the C-130 military transport that has brought us from Frankfurt to Bosnia. It is the dead of winter and conditions are abominable; everywhere there is mud, boredom, and waiting. There is danger, but genuine action seems rare. Often it is just dull. Morale, however, seems a throwback to some earlier age of honorable intentions. The nihilism of the psychedelic Vietnam days is forgotten, but few of the male and female soldiers are older than 26 or so; they weren't even born at the

time of the Tet offensive. You may understand intellectually that wars are waged by the very young, but when you actually confront the youth of these soldiers, the shock is huge.

We wait at the airport for about five hours, until a paratrooper takes us to the barracks, an old warehouse in Tuzla where we spend the night. The next morning we drive into what they call the Confrontational Zone, where the Serbs and the Croats are separated by perhaps a mile. Americans stand guard, awaiting relief from the Russians. The roads are wickedconniving and treacherous. The weather and the labyrinthine mountain roads complicate all transportation. As we approach Shark City, where the American soldiers are stationed, the evidence of war increases. Little shelled-out houses stand deserted, though bikes remain in front of many. Everything looks as if it had been interrupted on a moment's notice.

light breaks here about 7:30 and mornings are dull, not bright. Daytime and evening don't look much different.

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There is much talk in Shark City of hidden mines. All over, there are warnings: "Walk where someone else has walked."

When asked if they have pictures, they reach inside their helmets or deep into thier pockets. No one, it seems, came alone.

"Welcome to Tuzla," said the jokey, unmistakably American voice. "It's like Pittsburgh without a football team."

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The tedium is broken by the talk in Shark City of hidden mines. One soldier recently found a land mine outside his tent. Even when you step groggily into the night air to go to the bathroom, you must remember to keep your wits about you. All over Shark City, there is a litany of warnings: "Walk where someone else has walked," advice not easily dismissed. For safety's sake, you place your feet into the same prints that friends have made days before. Or weeks. It is comforting to know your buddy has blazed the trail. There are constant reminders not to pick up anything, not even the tiny pieces of rubber, sponges, or other debris lying everywhere.

At the depth of the winter, the temperature was 15 degrees below zero. Anything outside froze immediately, the second that the air touched it. I remember this as I listen to the Russians comparing their weapons with those of the Americans. The U.S. has planes which can pinpoint the source of an enemy attack and launch a counteroffensive before the enemy shell hits its target. The Russians, however, do not speak of the hightech glories of their war machine. They boast about their boots, which are seamless and carefully insulated. (The soldiers aren't just bragging; footwear has been a priority with the Russians since W.W. II, when the Germans stole boots, well made and warm, off the dead of Stalin's army.)

The French have the best foodbeef, crepes Suzette, pate—and the Americans exchange rations with them. So the French have food, the Russians have boots, and the Americans have guns and a kind of buoyant manner that seems out of place in this gray terrain.

I have taken photographs in many theaters of war. Bosnia appears to me to be a return to an earlier day, more like Korea or the World Wars than Desert Storm or Panama. Some of the soldiers, who are mostly beige -colored, say they haven't had a shower in five weeks. They use bottled water for spit baths. The latrines appear to have been consigned from the Romans; in an age of computer weaponry and high-tech tanks, we're still making army bathrooms out of bits of wood nailed together. You hang your coat on a nail, which doesn't hold; your coat falls and gets soaked in the urine-drenched mud. I came out complaining. The soldier outside said, "I try to avoid it as much as I can." I was embarrassed when I discovered that the G.I. was female.

Light breaks here about 7:30 and mornings are dull, not bright. Daytime and evening don't look much different—this is a war of black-and-white images. There are soldiers in the trenches 24 hours a day: sharpshooters stand guard against snipers; a sharpshooter must be capable of hitting a target dead on from 300 meters.

Not so long ago they were just normal American kids from all over the country. Most are not wealthy enough to have traveled extensively before. This is their first taste of a world beyond their own. They seem remarkably unified; there is no dissent, only conviction. They have seen the devastation now, and appear to have no doubt that they are doing what should be done. Of course, they are eager to go home. When asked if they have pictures of their girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, or children, they reach inside their helmets or deep into their pockets. Everyone has a photo. No one, it seems, came alone.

I am as glad to leave Shark City as the soldiers will be. Tuzla is a luxury hotel after Shark City. On my last night there, it poured rain. Everything in the tent got soaking wet. I got up angry to dry my sleeping bag and clothes by the heat of the stove. One of the soldiers woke up and told me they were all used to it—the rain, that is. They didn't even bother drying things off anymore.

If they did, he said, they would never get any sleep at all.