My first trip to Banja Luka in the UK sector was a real hoot. It was the longest drive, taking most of the day, so everybody’s already in a bad mood and behind schedule upon arrival. As usual, no pre-coordination had been done, so we waited outside the Brit’s HQ while our French Lieutenant played catch-up. We located the U.S. contingent in short order, drove over there, unloaded and started setting up in the clearing behind their area. Ten minutes later the Lieutenant returns and says to stop, they didn’t know where they wanted it. So we decided to just get some grub, find a place to crash and try again in the morning. They seemed to be in full NATO mode at this location.
By 10:00 the next morning the only thing I was worried about was driving through Bosnia in the dark on the way back to Sarajevo. HQ roof was obviously the best place it would actually work, but got kicked off there within minutes. The Lieutenant seemed to be doing his best in various animated conversations with one after another British officer, but making no progress. If something didn’t happen pretty soon we were gonna be here another day.
That’s when I got the light bulb thing again, staring at the defunct antenna tower right behind the building there. They weren’t even using it – for anything. I was about to find out why, the hard way. We didn’t have nearly enough coax to reach the hut from there, but I figured if we could just get it set up and running they would have no trouble humping the radio around until later, whenever. It was only gonna be used for 5 minutes once a week anyway.
So I got the Tacsat antenna up there and connected with a few zip ties to keep it in place when I notice Sgt Willis down at the bottom yelling for me to come down. I’m like, “just a minute, I’m almost done!!” He’s yelling frantically for some reason, and by then there’s around ten people gathered below. I was met at the bottom of the ladder by a British Colonel with a very stern look on his face. All he said was “That’s a good place for the antenna, but now’s not the time to put it there. We had sniper activity here last week.” Turned and walked away with his gaggle, including our Frenchman this time. All was right in our little world once again.
They obviously had more important things to worry about than whatever the fuck we were doing. I received another talkin’ to from the U.S. Lieutenant after we got back to Butmir. Something about language barriers and patience. I had no clue what she was talking about. Me ‘n the French Lieutenant got along great – he loved my music! 😉
