Peace and freedom - the kind people in the United States, Canada and Western Europe enjoy - may be the goal of NATO peacekeepers here in the war-ravaged Yugoslav province, but it's not something they expect any time soon. The goals of the United States and the many other nations making up the Kosovo Protection Force are much simpler and tend to focus on the basics - reduce the number of ethnic killings, bombings and intimidation, and prevent such ethnic violence from spreading to places such as Macedonia or the dominate Yugoslav province of Serbia.

In May of 2001, Sun Chronicle Editor Craig Borges and Photographer Keith Nordstrom visited Kosovo. Below are our stories.

Higher calling
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, DOVER, Del. -- Mark McKenna has an ex-girlfriend's uncle to thank back home in North Attleboro.

A vital link
SKOPJE, MACEDONIA -- David Buckley doesn't have to do this.

Camp Bondsteel a small city
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo -- A soldier's life at Camp Bondsteel isn't easy, but it could be worse.

On his guard
GNJILANE, Kosovo -- At 22, Bernard Visocchi is still a moma's boy; at least that's what he says.

Hate stops at hospital
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo -- The hate and mistrust between ethnic Albanians and Serbians astounds many here, even those soldiers who have made the conflict between Kosovo and its dominate neighbor, Serbia, their focal point of study for the past six months.

General sees gains
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo -- Success here is measured not in days or weeks, but in blocks of months, years and maybe even decades.

GIs are guardian angels
Vitina, Kosovo -- There's a church in the center of the small city of Vitina that probably once made the local residents quite proud. The gray stucco walls support a clay-red roof that is topped with a glittering gold cross. The building sits on a triangular-shaped spit of land alongside a small river on one of Vitina's busiest streets.

Translator credits rock 'n roll
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo -- Uran Berisha says he owes it all to English-language movies and music.

Area man in harm's way
ON THE KOSOVO/MACEDONIA BORDER -- Sean Hawkins is rather relaxed for a guy who spent much of this past winter camping out in the mountains of southeast Kosovo searching for ethnic Albanian rebels smuggling arms from Macedonia.

Troops adopt school
UROSEVAC/FERIZAJ, Kosovo -- Two Army humvees and a field hospital ambulance roar into the mud-filled schoolyard and the children go wild.

Reporters Notebook - My Impressions
There are things you see in Kosovo that you just know will stick with you for life. And this isn't necessarily a good thing.

Reporters Notebook - Land Mines
There are certain things you don't do in a war zone. Actually, there are many things, but those in charge of getting the press in an out of the Balkans safely have a penchant for stressing one thing in particular and with good reason.

Reporters Notebook - The beauty of Kosovo is deceiving
"If they didn't have all this war crap going on, Kosovo would be one beautiful place." The words, spoken by a Blackhawk helicopter crewmember

Reporters Notebook - At home in Kosovo
Feeling at home here in Kosovo is relatively easy seeing my hometown of Fall River seems to be well represented.

Reporters Notebook - Relaxing the Ground Safety Zone
You can pretty much count on more tragic news to come out of Kosovo over the summer.

Getting home from Kosovo wasn't easy
When the Greek soldier got on the bus at the Kosovo-Macedonia border, pointed his gun in my direction and said `Off the bus. Now!' I should have taken it as an omen. Getting home wasn't going to be easy.