Photo By Sgt. Maj. Peter Morrison | Taking time to talk to people is all part of 2nd Lt. Ben Carnell's job as the 1st...... read more read more
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo - It’s 5,252 miles from Charleston S.C. to the tiny village of Revatska/Rvatska, Kosovo, the people here speak Serbian and couldn’t seem more different than the American Infantry company encamped near the village, but after coffee and digging at the roots you realize, the two groups are not so far apart.
Army 2nd Lt. Ben Carnell is no stranger to hard work. He farms back home with Black Angus cows, corn and soy. He is also the 1st Platoon leader for Bravo Company, 1st of the 118th Infantry Division, the main effort for Multinational Battle Group East supporting the NATO mission in Kosovo.
His mission today was to go out to meet and engage local leaders outside his base near the administrative border line between Kosovo and Serbia. It was his first time speaking with key local people outside of training.
“That was about the first one in the real world, but you talk to people back home, you talk to people at work. It’s no different than anything you deal with back in the states. They’re people, they have concerns. Those guys are farmers, I have a farm. Their concerns are probably pretty similar to my concerns back home, we just happen to be in a different continent,” said Carnell.
The purpose of getting out into the community is to not only identify the problem but to identify with the people.
“Putting a name to a face and letting them know that we are there to help, and putting them in a position to define what help means. We don’t know what help means for these people right now. So, creating that dialogue helps them to open up to us a little bit,” said Carnell. “They are people just like us. They don’t mind conversation, as they start to trust us a little bit they will give us more information. It’s just like it goes back home.”
Carnell and his driver Sgt. Matt Owens sat down at a handmade wooden table next to a shack filled with corn and wheat. They drank coffee with their translator and two men from the village. The talk started with dairy cows and soil and ended with some serious issues facing the community.
“That’s where we are at right now, trying to build a picture for ourselves and higher so we can come up with a course of action to positively influence this place,” said Carnell.
After the meeting he stressed how important it is to not just take note of the issue’s but make an effort to fix them. “We didn’t leave our families for a year to not help out.”
“We didn’t come here to not make a difference, that’s what we do. If we identify a, b and c are going wrong and don’t do anything to solve them, then that’s kind of a wasted year for me personally. Even if it’s a small problem and we can fix it, we can look back and say that is different now then what it was when we came here,” said Carnell.
Fixing the problem means finding the right support through the institutions of Kosovo; getting people working together and ensuring those solutions are transparent.
Owens is a forward observer for Bravo Company. Before he moved to Boiling Spring, S.C., he made his money on a Montana cattle farm, and worked the hay fields and irrigation pipes. He echoed Carnell’s statement.
“Bravo Company is going to be the main element getting things done. We are an infantry unit, we are trained for a little more aggressive stance but at the same time we all have different jobs back in the states all different kind of skills and every single one of us has very good people skills. We can go out and talk to people and not be aggressive, but figure the problems out and when higher gives us the order to execute the plan and solutions we can go get that done,” said Owens.
For an infantry company, relating to people is not always the top priority, but being a National Guard unit helps bring their regional traits and skills to the table.
“The majority of people are all southern and a lot of them are country. We are in a very rural area and they can relate to how people live here,” said Owens.
Getting the people of Kosovo talking is only the first step in Bravo Company’s mission and it could be the most important.
“It’s the main priority. Those people live here, their families have been here for thousands of years. They know exactly what it’s going to take for Kosovo Serbians and Albanians to merge. They are not going to come out of the woods to talk to us. We are going to have to go to them and show them. We are here for them to provide them the necessities to live freely and come up with a plan, to trust us to tell us their problems and we can see what we can do,” said Owens.
Carnell, the young farmer, and platoon leader knows they won’t solve the country’s problems overnight but he knows he and his team from Bravo Company will do their best to make a difference big or small.
“At end state we want the civilian population protected. We want to ensure that safe and secure environment is not just something we say. If they are safe and secure just because they stay quiet when they need something so someone doesn’t give them a hard time, that’s not safe and secure. We want to leave here where there is an environment where people are free to voice their issues.”
| Date Taken: | 10.03.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 10.04.2012 11:19 |
| Story ID: | 95707 |
| Location: | CAMP BONDSTEEL, ZZ |
| Hometown: | BOILING SPRINGS, BARNWELL, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 382 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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