Bravo Company's `Knights' Bring Peace To Kosovo Village

GORNJI LIVOC, Yugoslavia - In this Kosovo village, the Golden Gate bridge spans the Mississippi, schoolchildren attend West Point and Serbs and ethnic Albanians alike smile and wave when U.S. soldiers pass by.

Even beyond the fantasy names for local landmarks, this isn't your average Kosovo village. As far as Lt. James Taumoepeau and his platoon are concerned, it's Camelot. And they are pulling off something here not even Merlin could achieve - getting Serbs and ethnic Albanians to live together in peace.

"They're not talking yet," Taumoepeau says. "But nobody has fired a shot since we arrived and they're not at each others' throats anymore."

It wasn't always like this. When Taumoepeau and the men of Bravo Company, 1st Batallion, 77th Armored Regiment, 2nd Platoon - they call themselves "The Bonecrushers" - rode their four tanks into town about five weeks ago, they found a Serb farmer and an ethnic Albanian farmer at an intersection, voices raised and fists balled, fighting over a combine tractor. The Serb wanted his wheat harvested. The ethnic Albanian refused.

"It took me 43 minutes to calm them down," says Taumoepeau, known by the locals simply as Lt. James. "But at the end, I had them shaking hands about to kiss.

"I told the (Serb) guy, `My problem is your problem,' " says Taumoepeau, 24, of San Mateo, Calif. He says he got a Serb from another village to bring over his combine and harvest the Serb's wheat.

Since then, members of the platoon have called the intersection where the confrontation took place the "O.K. Corral." And the ethnically motivated conflicts - from near daily mortar and gun attacks, to the burning of houses - have stopped.

"From the day they came to town it's quiet," said Slavko Arsic, who represents the town's 160 Serbs. "We are very satisfied with what they have done - everything."

This includes not only getting the village's roughly 1,700 Albanians to live peacefully with the Serbs, but also speeding up deliveries of food aid for both sides, helping apply for international aid to improve the village's availability of electricity and organizing a cleanup of the village stream, which the Bonecrushers call "The Mississippi."

The soldiers are among the approximately 40,000 troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, and their fame has spread as far away as Belgrade, where the usually anti-American Serb media recently praised Lt. James.

"He took the U.N. mandate seriously, he is fair to the people in the village, regardless of ethnicity and wants to help both Serbs and Albanians," the independent Danas daily said in an article last week.

The platoon's hands-on, open-minded approach often strays from standard army procedure. But its success in turning this former hotspot into a place where Serbs who had fled feel safe enough to return has earned the soldiers a reputation as the top platoon of the U.S.-patrolled sector in eastern Kosovo.

"We think of ourselves as knights," says Taumoepeau, with a smile. "And this is Camelot."

A map of this village about 30 miles east of Pristina hangs on a wall of the soldiers' brick house, which serves as their headquarters.

Four small bridges spanning the village stream carry the names of would-famous structures - such as the Golden Gate - and the two village shops have been dubbed the "Circle K" and the "7-Eleven."

While Taumoepeau tries to downplay his personal role, his men acknowledge he is special. Not only has he learned the intricacies of ethnic Albanian politics and the Serb history of the battle of Kosovo, but he knows most villagers by name.

"He's a godsend," says Sgt. Michael Stevens of Hernando, Fla. The mention of Taumoepeau's name can scare away unruly village kids, Stevens said. "Whenever they are messing with us, we just say, `Hey, James is over there,' and they run off."