The Russian's had a site up in Kamenica which was just north by 20 minutes of Gnjilane and Camp Monteith. The 101st Military Intelligence Battalion from Wuerzburg, Germany had a team up there and there was a tactical satellite team from the 17th Signal Battalion from Darmstadt, Germany. My platoon had a node center team there as well to provide phone and Internet service to everyone there and to integrate the Russian's into the communications network. My platoon and the platoon the 101st guys belonged to would alternate the chow runs to the site since they had no regular food service there (the Russian's didn't share their food and I don't think our guys would have wanted to eat it anyway!). In addition to the food run twice a day when it was our turn, we'd also take the mail and anything else they needed. Here are some pictures I took when I went on a chow run up there one morning.
The trip up there in the winter time was hazardous enough
without the locals trying to also fight the ice and snow!
A Russian armored vehicle making it's rounds.
One of the road signs on the way. As you'll see later in some of
my other pictures, a lot of the signs had town names crossed out.
A Russian checkpoint on the way to Kamenica.
One of the Russian troops standing out in the cold.
Passing by some of the locals. There wasn't a whole lot of industry
left over anymore, so I don't know what these people did for a job
or anything. Mostly they seemed to just hang around on the street.
Note the guy on the left giving us a wave. He probably hates us more
than any of the others who usually would just ignore us as we drove past.
Skipping the pictures of the front gate I have, here we
are on the Russian site. This is a picture of some of
the Russian equipment underneath camouflage.
The American end of the site.
Another picture of the American part of the site.
Those yellow pipes are from the gas heater to the living
quarters before Brown & Root built a winterized tent.
Can't remember the name of the troop on the left, in the middle is
PFC Ruskavage, and on the right is SGT Ladepo, team chief for the node center.
Here is PFC Goone.
And this is SPC (now SGT) Ferguson waiting for the convoy back.
One of the NCO's from 17th Signal Battalion (note the patch).
I can't remember his name. I wore that patch on my first tour.
From left to right: SPC (now SGT) Riggle, PFC Goone, SPC Beitsinger.
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