'Going Into Sector' In Kosovo

The regime of Slobodan Milosevic, toppled last week by a popular vote and street protests, isn't the only target of disdain in Yugoslavia. NATO's occupation of Kosovo is also seen as an obstacle to Yugoslavia's national destiny.

Despite its ethnic Albanian majority, Serbs see the province as the heart of their culture—their Jerusalem, as the new Yugoslav president put it this week.

But as CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports, the 42,000 NATO peacekeeping force—which includes 7,000 Americans—won't be leaving soon.

The troops of the Kosovo peacekeeping force, or KFOR, contend that more than a year after this place was bombed by NATO, many Serbs and Albanians still haven't figured out how to deal with each other or how to live without the help of the foreign troops.

It's what U.S. troops see when they go on foot patrol—soldiers call it "going into sector", threading gingerly through the dangers and demands of peacekeeping.

"People come up to us all the time with all sorts of complaints. We have to figure out if they're legitimate," said Sgt. Jeremy Moore, on a patrol that one Kosovar man stopped to ask for free medicine. "They think we are the magical KFOR that knows everything."

But that may be because the Americans look like they have plenty to give. On a bleak hilltop in southeast Kosovo, the U.S. Army has built the biggest base of its kind since Vietnam.

It's called Camp Bondsteel, a small town of nearly 1,000 acres with its own electricity, graded roads, sewage treatment, fresh water and proper housing.

"A comfortable soldier is an effective peacekeeper, so that's one of the aspects that we try to provide the soldier with is a little bit of home," said Lt. Colonel Seth Braverman, the base's public affairs officer.

At Bondsteel, U.S. military planners have applied lessons learned in Bosnia.

Instead of troops living in tents surrounded by mud or choking dust for months, the Pentagon decided it would be cheaper in the long run to make Bondsteel a little bit of America right from the start.

But as comfortable as Bondsteel is, as Braverman puts it, "Most of what goes on goes on outside the wire."

Ask any American soldier what he's doing here and he'll tell you the job isn't taking sides, it's all about making Serbs and Albanians feel secure and confident enough so that one day, maybe, they can learn to live together.

To do that, thousands of miles of patrols are conducted every week.

The U.S. soldiers are available to all sides, but Serbs need the most protection. Every Serb church has to be guarded, and in a recent two-week period, seven hand grenades were tossed at Serbs.

Yugoslav citizens consider the peacekeeping force an infringement of their national sovereignty, arguing that Kosovo is part of their country and its troubles an internal affair.

However, ironically, one of the biggest dangers to Kosovakids is getting too excited about the foreign presence.

"If you wave to the kids, they'll run up to your vehicle, they'll try to give you a high five while you're driving by, get run over real easy," said Moore.

One such victim, seven-year-old Samir Buci, who tried to high-five a passing vehicle, was lucky that the last old-style MASH unit in the U.S. army is at Bondsteel.

"Had we not been here there is a good possibility he would not have use of that arm," said Col. Herman Blanton.