The Army usually builds up gradually. But, driven by the certainty of a hard winter and the probability that Kosovo will be a long-term problem, the Army has its engineers, Navy Seabees, contractors and more than 1,000 local tradesmen sculpting the landscape, grading roads, banging nails and hooking up utilities. Most of the roughly 5,000 troops here, near the city of Urosevac, and another 2,000 at a second base camp 15 miles east in Gnjilane, will be out of their tents by Oct. 1. It'll be nice if they ever get it done. There's nothing fancy about the architecture.
Tin covers the roofs.
The buildings don't have permanent foundations. Instead, they are built on concrete pads that can be removed at mission's end, whether that's in a year or five years. The base already is providing a boost to the local economy, where unemployment is near 100 percent. Hundreds of Kosovars also work as cooks, launderers, translators and other assistants, allowing soldiers to focus on peacekeeping. Both Serbs and ethnic Albanians are being hired in a show of ethnic neutrality.