This photograph was taken from
a house that the MILAN platoon had occupied during the period
at Kosovo Polje, from here are main area of concern was the
flats to our immediate front, on arrival to this location there
was approximately 70 % Albanian and 30% Serbian living here
however over the months that we patrolled this area about 24%
of the Serbs moved back to Serbia, this was due to fighting,
threats and killing between family's. There was one particular
incident that I remember when a bomb in a market place exploded
(just to the rear and right of the flats in the photograph)
and three Serbs died with thirty seven were wounded, this caused
the Serbs that were living in Kosovo Polje to riot and block
all the main roads through Kosovo Polje and also to and from
the airport. The patrolling however, by the MILAN platoon continued,
due to the fact that the MILAN had now been here for so many
weeks that the NCO and the Guardsman new the area like locals
and could find all the short cut to streets back ally ways and
areas were we identified as hot spots and potential for trouble.
The patrolling techniques that the MILAN used here were that
of similar purpose to Northern Ireland. The warriors were not
really effective here due to the noise factor, a 15 ton warrior
rev-ving its engines between two blocks of flats causes to wake
the dead, so covert operations had to be introduced in order
that we could find the trouble makers
Not all was doom and gloom,
the moral of the MILAN was extremely high, the crack was good
and what ever had to be done, was done professionally, the platoon
was the busiest in the province in my opinion, and this was
down to the likes of the NCOs and the senior Guardsmen, such
as Biff Newman, J.D, Dungess, Squirrel, brown towel and of cause
the sample chick (CQMS) who would visit and provide the lads
with all sorts of things. A question the MICKS that read this
"who was the funky chicken on BFBS radio", it's possible
that the Sammy sample chick knows.
