I traveled with the Public Affairs Officer and a couple of translators to two refugee camps in
the town of Gorna (upper) Veca (pronounced vitsa) and Donja (lower) Veca.

I was the only one in my unit that was able to go so, I ended up driving the Hummer.
Heck, on these narrow roads, I was more nervous driving around than flying. I wish
I had been a passenger, I could have taken more pictures of the town. From ground level
I got a much better perspective of the destruction caused by the war. The encouraging
part was that people were diligently cleaning up debris and rebuilding everywhere I went.

	The first refugee camp was located on the top of a hill just above an open coal pit. There were about 60 people that lived in 3 two-story houses. Most of the adults were middle-aged widows that were missing their front row upper teeth. Others were grandmothers. There was only a hand full of men. For those that are not familiar with the conflict, during the genocide, all men of age were executed. Then the women were raped and the Serb soldiers would pull a tooth from the women as a souvenir. As Paul Harvey says, “this is not all one world.”
	When we arrived most of the children were in school, but they arrived about an hour later. We spoke with the elders for a while, then just mingled with some of the families. They loved to get their pictures taken with us. Thanks to my in-laws I have a new digital camera. The folks were especially pleased with that camera because they could look at the picture instantly.
	I was struggling to use what little Bosnian I know with this one woman, Musha. In frustration, I under my breath mentioned that I knew the words in Russian. She told me that she spoke Russian. With that common bond we able to share a few stories about our families. Looking at her children, I could not believe what they were forced to witness. Later on we passed out clothes and school supplies. There was a lot of bickering over who would get what and how much. We took down a list of other things that they needed with winter coming, said our goodbyes then we were on our way.
	The next camp is the one that our unit is assigned to sponsor. This group seemed a lot more cohesive. Everything was a lot more orderly and they shared everything equally. I spoke, through the interpreter, at great length with the people there. We chatted about their stories and about the subject dearest to us both, our children. I asked if teenagers there are as much trouble as they are in America. That got a good laugh. They told me that the teenagers, mostly boys, were pretty good considering that none of them had a father.

Then we were shown their rooms. They each had two rooms. The dimensions of the one room was about 4 X 8. In this room was a small refrigerator, a shove, coat rake and supplies (food, cleaning supplies, etc.). The other room, 8' X 12' was the combination living room, dining room, bedroom. Each had a large L-shaped couch. Average number of occupants was 5 but one room slept 7. Imagine that. All the furniture, bedding, and rugs were made by hand and each of the rooms were very neatly kept.

I took pictures of some of the folks and the interpreters. Some of the soldiers were playing basketball with the older boys. Others were looking at items in the corner store. They purchased some candy and shared it with the rest of us. School was letting out at that time. When we started passing out the candies there were about 6 kids around. Once the candy came out, children came out of the woodwork. It was like seagulls feeding on fish. We had to jump in our vehicles and beat feet out of there. Note to self: bring more candy next time.