Danger, Mines! Delta Force misadventures in Bosnia

Long drives in Bosnia just to pass through a target city to record license plates of cars parked at a certain residence grew to be nothing less than arduous. One city was a 2.5 hours drive away. Laziness drove one of our crew to conduct a map study and come up with a route that cut as much as 45 minutes off of our current trek by going off the country’s Main Supply Routes, or MSRs. 

“I never heard any edict demanding that we stick to the MSRs,” suggested one of our crew. “Taking this more cross-country route will make the drive almost bearable, and the roads, though not completely fully paved, appear to be a safe travel bet – I don’t know why they were not used in the first place.”

“I don’t know though… there has got to be a reason they were not used in the first place,” warned another man..

Spitballing the idea led to our first cross country test drive. At the point where the MSR gave way to a well-traveled country road we noted the topography to be gently rolling hills with few to no stream or river crossings. There were only two such crossings that proved to be so deep as to require bridges. 

Bridging in Bosnia was a crapshoot, at times, as the bridges were not necessarily maintained and in some cases had been destroyed during the war due to their strategic value. 

“Well that’s what this maiden voyage is mostly about, right?… to see if it can be a suitable route to take us to Zeneznića! Onward and upward!” I said, and on we traveled.

The journey came to a head eventually when we rounded a curve and came to a bridge that showed evidence of several artillery impacts on its structure. There was a stake driven into the ground with a ball-shaped object impaled onto the end of it, and a sign nearby that was facing in the opposite direction of our travel.

It warranted a stop and an investigation. As I approached the stake, I was met with a sickening feeling in my stomach at the realization that the ball-shaped object was in fact a human skull.

“That’s a game changer, there,” I heard someone say behind me. 

Related: How a Delta Force operator celebrated New Year’s in Bosnia

I thought to maybe bury the skull with a few conducive yet generic words of prophecy. But when I read the words on the sign, which was directed at travelers in the opposite direction as ours, that idea gave way to an overwhelming desire to just leave it alone.

There, sprayed with black paint onto a pallet surface and screwed to a stake were the words, “Pazi – Mina!” that translate to, “Look out—Mines!”

Everyone was suddenly painfully aware of where they were standing with respect to the sign.

“OK…” piped up our man in charge, “we need to probe this immediate area carefully in a large enough diameter to turn this car around. Then we will drive out of here as best we can on our own wheel tracks.”

Mine-probing was done just like in the movies: We got on our hands and knees and pushed a knife gently into the road’s surface looking for a hard object just under it. There was to be no attempt to excavate anything, we would just place a mark on the suspect locations. 

“I think I found one… or something fishy!” came a whimper, and everyone thought of Don Rickles as the character Oddball in the movie Kelly’s Hero’s.“

“OΚ, just mark it with a pile of rocks and keep moving – don’t try to dig it up!” was the retort.

“Oddball” placed four rocks together with a fifth rock on top to form a pyramid marking the suspect location. 

When the swath was completely probed and the car successfully turned about, our four weary selves crawled back in the vehicle and resumed our journey slowly and with all eyes trained on the tire tracks to our front. By the time we arrived at the MSR junction again we were a cool two hours behind our usual schedule. As a result, we were not able to identify target license plates on cars parked in Zeneznića. 

The After Action Review went something like this: 

“Guys, our own laziness put us two hours behind our Time on Target (TOT) in Zeneznića, and we were unable to claim sightings of our target cars. Today the hunted individuals got a free day to come and go as they please thanks to our sloth. Better luck tomorrow – we drive the main MSRs.”

Sometimes you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can always re-teach it the old tricks.

By Almighty God and with Honor

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Feature Image: The author’s Delta Force detachment; author on far right. (Photo courtesy of author)

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