he difference in reactions and perceptions from the beginning of the deployment to the end of it covers a lot of ground. When I first got to Kosovo, we had a few things happen that were a little crazy. All you have to do is go to Wikipedia and look up “North Kosovo Crisis (2022-2025) and you can see all of it. Whoever is keeping this Wiki page updated sure has their work cut out for them (and they’re doing a good job, too).

Scroll down about halfway to the 2024 November part; the entry on the “Ibar-Lepenac Canal Attack”. That was more or less where we started:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Kosovo_crisis_(2022%E2%80%932025)

At the time, just about anything that deviated from what we perceived as “daily norms” was cause of alarm. When the canal was attacked (minor nitpick; it’s actually more of an aqueduct) we went on lockdown, beer garden privileges were suspended, and we had to initiate a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) standby plan.

Now, we’ve had a failure of Kosovo to form a government following elections and mass protests in the streets of Belgrade, as the nearby Republika Srpska (it’s own thing in all this) is threating to secede from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And we’re chilling; why? Because we now have a radically revised concept of what constitutes as “daily norms” for all things in the Western Balkans.

Call us when the bombs are dropping; otherwise, what time is brunch?