Alaska News

Alaska paratroopers are headed to Kosovo for peacekeeping mission

About 350 Anchorage-based paratroopers will be deploying to Kosovo at the end of the month.

Elements of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) 25th Infantry Division will first spend a month in Germany for training before heading to two NATO camps in Kosovo, a country torn apart by war since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the late 1990s. The Alaska troops held a deployment ceremony Friday afternoon at Buckner Field House on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

While in Kosovo, the Alaska paratroopers will work alongside the Kosovo police force and European Union troops to keep the peace in heavily Serbian and Albanian ethnic areas. But the Alaska troops will not be on the front lines.

"We simply back (Kosovo and EU troops) up, and we just provide a visible deterrence to ensure the people of Kosovo that, in fact, the environment is safe," said the unit's commander, Col. Clint Baker.

Baker said the destination will be a nice change for his troops, who are used to deploying to active war zones in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a serendipitous coincidence, one of the camps to which the Alaska soldiers will be deploying, Camp Bondsteel, is named after an Alaska military hero. James Leroy Bondsteel was presented the Medal of Honor by then-President Richard Nixon for his actions in Vietnam. Bondsteel was killed in a vehicle crash on the Knik River Bridge in 1987.

Spc. Travis Webster has been in the U.S. Army for only two years and Kosovo will be his first deployment. Webster and his wife, Gessly, have two young children. He is worried about how Gessly will handle everything while he is away, he said, but he added that despite the distance and time that will soon be separating them, technology will be a big help in keeping his family together.

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"I will be able to stay in communication with her, and I know that she will handle everything very well," Webster said.

Gessly Webster said while she is nervous about the deployment, she will be getting help from other Army spouses, some of whom have already endured as many as seven deployments.

"I am excited for him, and I know this is what he wants to do," she said.

The Army just began sending active-duty troops to Kosovo last year. Until then, most of the soldiers sent to the area were in the Reserves or National Guard. Despite a modest uptick in Albanian separatist activity in the region, the Anchorage-based troops said they weren't too worried about their latest mission.

"We will be bringing our body armor, but we will probably never have to use it," said Maj. Adam Hallmark, the unit's public affairs officer.

Sean Doogan

Sean Doogan is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News.

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