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Join Wundry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's March 31st 1999, more than a year into the Kosovo War in Eastern Europe.

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Stone is sitting in the front passenger seat of an armored Humve, patrolling Macedonia's border with

Yugoslavia alongside two other American soldiers.

As the Humvee rattles along a bumpy dirt road, Stone scans the horizon looking for signs of trouble.

Normally this would be a routine patrol.

One Stone has done many times for the United Nations, which has been successfully keeping the peace in Macedonia, while war

rages next door. But this time things are different. Stone has traded his blue

peacekeeper's helmet for a military green one. It's a subtle change, but it signals a significant

shift. He's no longer a UN peacekeeper. He's a combatant because for the past few days the

U.S. and its NATO allies have been bombing Yugoslavia.

The American-led airstrikes are intended to put an end to the bloody campaign against ethnic

Albanians in Kosovo, led by Yugoslavian president Slobodon Melosovich.

But so far, tensions only seem to be escalating.

This is why Stone has changed his uniform.

He's now working for NATO, not the UN, and looking for any sign that

Yugoslavia might be planning to retaliate for the bombings. But his is still technically a peacekeeping

mission, so if Stone sees anything suspicious,

his orders are to send a warning to the rest of the NATO troops not to fight,

which leaves Stone and his men with little recourse if if anything were to happen while driving on this isolated road without their weapons combat ready.

So Stone keeps scanning the surrounding trees and farmland for any signs of danger.

Throughout their journey no one speaks.

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