On the federation side, where Camp Dobol sits, many of the houses are tidy, with red roofs and cream-colored walls. Minarets, a signature of Muslim mosques, dot the hillsides. Civilians, especially children, wave and smile at the soldiers. Then the Humvees enter the Zone of Separation, or the ZOS, a swath of no-man's land four kilometers wide that separates federation land from the Republic of Srpska, the area carved out for Bosnian Serbs in Dayton. War damage is far more apparent inside the Serbian sector.
Some houses are simply shells.
Yet people still live there, Reitz says. He knows because he sees light inside what's left of some of the houses on night missions. The reception from civilians is, for the most part, cooler in Serbian territory. Boys point their fingers as the soldiers drive past as if to shoot them. A little girl sticks her tongue out.