(au format; 58
secs.; .93 mg) (au format; 125 secs.; 1.96 mg)Meanwhile, polls show most Americans oppose the use of U.S. military peacekeepers although there are signs that support is growing. In October, a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found only 30 percent thought Congress should approve sending troops. A new poll shows that 43 percent now support approval.
Earlier this week we went to sample opinion in one rural community - Moorefield - in Hardy County, West Virginia.
Even though Moorefield is on the south bank of the Potomac River, it is hours distant from Washington, and it feels far removed from national politics. There are 2,300 people, one elementary and one high school, poultry and cattle farms, and lots of history. There was one large county here but it divided into two over bitter differences after the Civil War and, maybe for spite, the Yankee portion named itself for General Grant. They know about disagreement in Moorefield, whether the subject is our own Civil War or our trying to stop the one in Bosnia.
MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: What I'ma sayin' is straighten it out once and bring our troops home and forget it.
2nd MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: There's another war goin' on again.
MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: Well, there's always gonna be wars.
2nd MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: That's right, so just git out of there and leave 'em alone. We don't-- it don't concern America whatsoever.
MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: No, don't let innocent people be murdered.
netscape 2nd MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: How does this concern America?A man called Dump Simmons [sp] was selling Christmas trees out of a sports and taxidermy shop. There was a stove near the front window of the place, and several chairs, and men came in not buying anything but a place to sit and talk.
3rd MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: I think that innocent people are being protruded upon [sic] by the warlords and what-not and somebody should straighten 'em out.Several blocks away, one of Dump Simmons' trees, it looked like a ten-footer, had been erected in the County Courthouse and some of the women who worked there were decorating it. They had to be coaxed into saying anything, with offers of anonymity. It was as though their opinions on Bosnia were unformed yet, not ready for display.4th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: Yeah, get them fancy words in there.
3rd MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: We need-- Bosnia needs something done bad. The United States is trying to police the world, so let us use our force to do it.
4th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: I don't think you should be sent over there is what I think, gettin' into another Vietnam. Well,--
2nd MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: One side-- why should America take care of one side and let the other side go?
4th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: That's what they say, but-- That's what they say, but I don't agree with that.
5th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: And I think we'll have to be part of that. I mean, I don't think we can stand back as one of the first nations to-- I mean, we're always in the front and we'll have to help, but I don't-- I think often everybody waits for us to do and then they follow.The county assessor stopped, a Marine veteran named George Raines [sp]. They had talked about Bosnia this last weekend in Sunday School, he said, about ethnic cleansing and religious hatreds and the need to act.6th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: Well, I do think we have some responsibility to try to keep peace in the world, and I think also that when you're in the Service, you know, there is that chance you're going to be called to battle or such, but I don't like it.
ALEX CHADWICK: You don't like it.
6th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: I don't like the fact that we have to go over there and I wonder how we're gonna get out and how involved it's going to get. It may have gotten ahead of itself.
7th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: We have problems over here that we should focusing on too, like hungry children, homeless people. We have common little cities and big cities and we haven't taken care of our problems, so how can we focus on someone else's?
ALEX CHADWICK: You don't think Bosnia is worth dying for then?
7th MOOREFIELD RESIDENT: No I don't. When we have problems in America, I don't think it's worth it, no.
GEORGE RAINES: We either have a moral duty or none. Just shut your eyes and forget it. And what we gonna do? Shut our eyes and forget it, or try to change it?Not all of George Raines' fellow veterans in Moorefield would agree with his willingness to send U.S. peacekeepers. At the town's American Legion post many were against it. Some said there own experience in the military, and afterwards, left them feeling betrayed by the government. Some spoke about the president avoiding military service; others said that didn't matter. The manager of the Hall was a former Navy man named Larry Hebner [sp].
LARRY HEBNER: My opinion on that is we're a country that's 250 years old and these other countries been around for thousands of years. They seem to solve their problems before we came along and I feel that they ought to be able to solve their own problems today. As far as sacrificing human lives, American lives, we have the -- mostly the kids that are in the Armed Forces today, they're in to get enough money to try to get a college education and they're puttin' their lives at risk for no benefit whatsoever that I can see. You know, sooner or later you're gonna take somebody's side, and that's what we done in Vietnam. We took somebody's side.At Moorefield High School a government teacher invited several students to talk with us in the hallway, Jessica, Mark and Jonathan, 16 and 17 years old. Jessica said the kids were following Bosnia.ALEX CHADWICK: That's what you're worried about? You're worried we'll wind up choosing sides over there and then we'll be in trouble?
LARRY HEBNER: That's exactly right.
JESSICA: And everybody's definitely thinking about it and any evening when we go home after school and you turn on the TV, it's there on the news, there's always some type of coverage, they're always saying something about it, so, I mean, everybody's definitely thinking about it and is talking about it.Indeed, they seem to know a lot about it. Sarajevo, Bosnia, said Mark, is where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, the fuse that ignited World War I. `It is a dangerous place for us to be,' he said, `but maybe more so if we don't do something now.'
MARK: The United States does have to take a stand in this. These are other human beings. I mean, the state and our own country are starting to go downhill. Once we let this occur globally -- things don't look too optimistic and this has all happened before. This region has been the cause of world wars before and it should warrant our attention.In Moorefield, kids still leave bicycles lying unlocked in the front yards of homes a block from Main Street and it is easy to find teenagers who are idealistic and youthful and eager and good kids. Almost everyone else we talked to was more hesitant than these high school students about risking the lives of American soldiers in Europe, but people also spoke about the pictures they'd seen from Bosnia, especially the images of children brutalized and wounded. Despite the risk, and what political polls report from elsewhere, in Moorefield, West Virginia, most people said Bosnia probably is someplace the United States belongs.JESSICA: I think that even if we lost American lives, you have to think how many Bosnian lives have already been lost. I mean, how many people have already died in this, that we could go and stop right now? I'm thinking about a military career and I would definitely give my life if I knew that would stop.
ALEX CHADWICK: So this wouldn't -- I mean, the prospect of going over there wouldn't be personally frightening to you?
JESSICA: Oh, yes, it would be. It would be very scary to know that you're going over there and people are, I mean, are possibly gonna try and kill you. But if you know you're gonna stop the numbers from growing, then, I mean, and nobody else is gonna get killed, I mean, I would say, I would definitely say, that my life is worth thousands of Bosnian lives.
JONATHAN: I think that a lot of teenagers feel the way we do and that sending over troops to Bosnia could prevent something else from happening. I think that we're hopeful, we're very hopeful.
JESSICA: I kind of say that, of course, our ideas are a little idealistic because we're young. I mean, we still see the world as kind of a great place.
Our report from Moorefield was produced and edited by NPR's
Michael Sullivan.
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