December 18, 1995
Web posted at: 8:55 p.m. EST (0155 GMT)
From Correspondent Richard Blystone
TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- In a soldier's life, few things are more mundane than the changing of the guard. But the scene Monday night at the gate to the Tuzla Air Base symbolized the switch from United Nations presence to NATO power in Bosnia.
The U.N. soldiers who have guarded the base for more than two years began a hand over to the first U.S. combat troops to arrive. The troops were airborne soldiers under NATO's command, fresh from landing on a day that marked a turnover in more ways that one.
As the four-day cloud of frustration lifted Monday, the troop airlift began in earnest, and Task Force Eagle set out to make up for lost time.
"We just hollered 'go' and everybody went out and jumped in their airplane and away they went," said Col. Neal Patton.
The top priority: troops and equipment to prepare Tuzla Air Base for an even bigger flow of troops and equipment later on. High on the list: certifying the approach control radar that will allow landings in the same bad weather that canceled operations from Thursday until Monday.
With engines running and propellers turning, C-130 transports unloaded in haste and took off again to make room on the small air base for the next plane. New troop arrivals hustled to clear the unloading area, using anything that moved, out of the small inventory of vehicles already on the ground.
Once specialists had checked out the approach radar, the first signs of NATO's fist rolled into Bosnia in advance of the armored column coming by land.
Brigadier General Stanley Cherrie said that the former warring factions were "very very responsive" to requests for reconnaissance flights.
"(They are) more than agreeable to doing what we wanted, to assist us getting in the country," he said. (179K AIFF sound or 179K WAV sound)
Just after dark Monday night, the breakthrough everyone had been waiting for landed at Tuzla -- the first of three planeloads of U.S. airborne light infantry hit the ground to provide security and force protection for the command headquarters.
Less than two weeks ago, Tuzla Air Base -- a former MiG fighter base -- was a quiet place that hadn't seen a fixed- wing landing in a year in a half. In the weeks to come, it will be fielding the biggest military airlift this part of the world has ever seen.
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