Transcript of "Guarding Bosnia: Camp Life" [Mike Tobias/Reporting] It's daybreak at Camp McGovern in northern Bosnia. Specialist Joshua Harris rouses fellow troops with a non-traditional version of a traditional wake-up call. [Spec. Joshua Harris/Lincoln] I asked the people in charge, and they were like, yeh, you can bring your instrument. Just bring it down during Thanksgiving break. I brought it down during Thanksgiving break and they just kind of looked at me like, what the heck is that? I was like, it's my tuba, I play the tuba. [Soldier] So you like hearing that tuba in the morning? No. I'd rather hear a trumpet. It's an interesting twist on reveille. [Tobias] Harris left behind classes at UNL and a spot in the marching band when his Army Guard unit was activated last fall. [Harris] Miss home a lot, miss the band, miss all that fun stuff. [Tobias] There are other students...and loan officers, mechanics and police officers. They come from 42 of Nebraska's 49 Legislative districts. Roughly 400 citizen soldiers that together comprise Task Force Huskers. Most live at Camp McGovern. It's location is key - it sits on the line that divides the Serb held portion of the country from the Muslim-Croat area. It's also near Brcko, a city about the size of Grand Island. Here many Bosnians died in battle, or were victims of horrific war crimes. Control of Brcko was disputed for years after a peace treaty was signed in 1995. That's why you'll see armed hum-vee patrols leaving Camp McGovern all day. Their presence helps keep the guns silent, and helps Bosnia rebuild. [Lt.Col. Tim Kadavy/Task Force Huskers Commander] We want to get this country to the point where it can sustain itself and run itself without the need for peacekeepers being here to stabilize and keep the peace. [Tobias] There's no question Camp McGovern sits in an area still considered a war zone. Buildings are heavily bunkered. Barbed wire fences, guard towers and a 10-foot berm surround the camp. Soldiers carry weapons at all times, clearing them at safety checkpoints before entering buildings. McGovern is often described as spartan, for good reason. It's a flat, mostly treeless sea of white rock. The rock is needed because it normally rains a lot. Soldiers live and work in dark brown buildings, called seahuts. Still, they say it's a pretty good place for a cavalry unit to call home. [Capt. Robert Kadavy/Lincoln] This is one of the hidden secrets of the Army. It's a lot nicer than expected. As cavalrymen we're kinda used to being out in the tents and having outdoor toilets and just dealing with the weather. In here we have these nice seahuts with air conditioning and twin beds, and the dining facility is amazing. [Sgt. Zachary Owens/Omaha] It's a great place to be. I'm a single person and I'm a bachelor, so it's nice. I've got a place to do my laundry, cook me food. [Soldier] Food's really good here. There's quite a variety. [Tobias] Maybe too good - some soldiers say they've gained weight here. Maybe that's one reason exercise is a common diversion. The camp has a huge weight room and gym. Intramural sports like volleyball and softball are also popular. Soldiers can't leave McGovern for recreation. So on-camp activities are important. [Robert Kadavy] As the leadership has to deal with its soldiers, a soldier that's happy and enjoying himself is just a lot easier to use and to work with. We have the softball, the horseshoes, the volleyball games, and a lot of that relieves the stress of the soldiers, it gives them something to do with their time, and it builds camaraderie. So as the soldiers go out and do their mission they're just a lot more comfortable. And I think the people notice that. [Tobias] Entertainers like this country-rock band and NFL cheerleaders pass make periodic stops at McGovern. And there's always sumo wrestling. [Tim Kadavy] Right here on the installation, just about everything you'd see in a small community back in the United States is here. So it's very easy to adjust to living conditions here. We've got a PX that sells everything you need. We've got MWR, morale, welfare and recreation, that provides all types of tournaments and sports equipment. Then we have TV, AFN, Armed Forces Network provides most of the stations and shows that they generally watch. [Tobias] Soldiers also kill time outside and inside their rooms. This typical seahut room houses four soldiers - it's large enough for 10. [Spec. Derek Czapla/Lincoln] We just section everything off so we kinda have our personal space. Just bed, we got our little footlockers, kinda messy, it's where we keep all of our clothes, bathing items. Most of us have a TV, DVD player, VCR, so we can watch what we want. Then we have all of our gear, usually under our bunks. [Czapla] It got up to Heat-Cap 5, which is the highest category. [Tobias] College student Czapla is a medic in the army - tracking the heat index is part of his job. Like most soldiers here he works about 50 to 60 hours a week. This still leaves a lot of down time. [Czapla] To kill time, it's really hard. [PFC John Halley/Arlington] I don't think there's going to be a movie ever made that I haven't seen by the end of this deployment. [Tobias] Computer games are popular, especially among younger soldiers like the 19-year-old Halley. He's playing a game called Unreal Tournament. [Halley] It's a battle game, and all these computers here are interlinked so you can play it with other guys that are here. [Tobias] Technology also helps soldiers stay connected to home. They use phone lines and live chat in the Camp's cybercafe to stay in touch with wives, kids and parents. [Owens] The communications that they have here, the DSN lines, which is something that we can call back home, the Internet, the web cameras, they provide us all with that, so that keeps us in contact with our family, so it's not so hard. But it's still kind hard that we don't get to go have dinner with them, supper, breakfast. [Tobias] Owens, a loan officer, and Sgt. Robert McMullen, an electrical wholesaler, are two of the Task Force Huskers soldiers who also served for six months in Kuwait in 2001. [Sgt. Robert McMullen/Arlington] I'm very anxious to get home. I miss my wife and my kids. This is my second deployment and I don't want to have any more. Just being around them, talking to my wife, playing video games with my son, listening to my daughter play her flute, her French horn, she likes the instruments so, and she likes to show off her talents. I kind of miss that. [Spec. Jason von Hoff/Lincoln] First thing my wife told me was how fat her cheeks were. [Tobias] Then there are soldiers like Jason von Hoff. He's looking at photos of Emmi, his newborn daughter, just hours after she was born in Lincoln. Jason's father e-mailed the pictures. The wives of more than 20 other Task Force Huskers soldiers gave birth while their husbands were in Bosnia. [Jason von Hoff] You feel connected, but at the same time you're so far. You just want to touch them and hold them. [Raquel von Hoff/Jason's Wife] I had lots of support from my mother and father-in-law, they were with me and they helped me. So I had help, but he wasn't there to support me as a husband, so that was the hardest part. Just not having him there. [Tobias] Raquel's had her hands full the last few months. Caring for a newborn and Tristin, their preschooler. [Raquel von Hoff] The late night feedings, I miss him being able to do some of that. And also when our 2 1/2-year-old needs something too, really miss having an extra hand or just having a dad around to take him to do dad things. [Tobias] It's something that's happened to the von Hoff family before, during World War II. [Raquel von Hoff] Jason's grandfather, he served in the Navy, and his grandma was in the same situation with her daughter being born, and he wasn't home, and coming back eight months later to see his daughter. It's kinda almost becoming a family tradition. [Tobias] Jason and Raquel both say it's a tradition that's difficult, but worth the sacrifice. [Jason von Hoff] Being in the Army and the Nebraska National Guard, and coming over to Bosnia, it's really mellowed me out. It's made me put my life more in perspective, as far as what's really important. And I realize how important my children are. [Tobias] It's a feeling echoed by other Nebraskans who say they've been changed by the Bosnian experience. [Harris] Professionally I've grown. You learn how to work with other people. Definitely there's a language barrier, but you learn how to deal with that, especially as a teacher I'm learning how to deal with other people. It's something I would never give up. It's worth missing a year of school. [Tobias] This month Task Force Huskers hands Camp McGovern over to a new group of Army Guard troops, soldiers from Minnesota and Iowa. They'll happily leave behind some of the trappings - one soldier says he's replacing all the white landscape rock at his house when he returns to Nebraska. They'll take home all the Husker paraphernalia, and a hope that they've made a difference. Next week, we'll look at the future of Bosnia, and the effectiveness of this peacekeeping mission. Reporting from Statewide from Bosnia, I'm Mike Tobias.