Preparing for battle

Ian C. Mayer Arizona Daily Wildcat Sociology senior Ezra Tafesse is a U.S. Army reserves military intelligence imagery analyst for the 418th Military Intelligence Company out of Phoenix.

"(I was) one of those kids who had the G.I. Joes and was out in the backyard playing with toy guns," said Tafesse, a military intelligence imagery analyst for the U.S. Army Reserves.

Tafesse, 23, may be among thousands of U.S. troops called into service in Kosovo as President Clinton last week authorized the Pentagon to send 31,102 U.S. military reservists to the Serbian province.

After Clinton's statement, Tafesse said his commanders told the troops to "just hang tight and stay informed."

So far, only 2,116 reservists from across the country have been called, but Tafesse and many soldiers like him could face up to nine months of active duty in the NATO air campaign in Kosovo.

If the situation forces him to fight in Kosovo, Tafesse, who joined the army reserves in 1997, said he is ready to go.

"I'd be happy to serve my country," he said. "If that means having to kill for my country, I'd do that too."

Tafesse said his unit of about 12 people, which does top-secret analytical work such as bomb damage assessment, could be used if the situation in Yugoslavia continues to worsen.

"If things escalate in the next few months where we have ground troops go into Kosovo, there would be a good chance that my unit would be called up," said Tafesse, who would leave behind his parents and an 18-year-old sister in their suburban San Francisco home.

More than one-third of Kosovo's original 1.8 million people have fled the province since air strikes began, many expelled by Serb forces into neighboring Albania and Macedonia.

Despite a rash in recent days of what NATO officials claims as the most successful attacks to date in the 41-day conflict, the alliance's top general yesterday said the air strikes have failed to stop Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing campaign.

But in Washington, the U.S. Senate yesterday voted to delay a measure sponsored by Arizona Republican John McCain that would have authorized a ground war if necessary.

Tafesse, a member of the 418th Military Intelligence Company out of Phoenix, said he supports NATO's efforts in Yugoslavia.

"They (Serb forces) are killing people for no reason, they're burning, they're raping," he said. "It's necessary for us as the leader of the free world to go in and promote democracy. If we have to kill Serbian people to do that, that's unfortunate, but they have to look to their president and see that he's killing Kosovo Albanians."

While most military intelligence jobs take place at a field headquarters away from the fighting, the possibility for being sent to the front lines to support commanders in the field always exists, Tafesse said.

"Even though my job's in military intelligence, I'm a soldier first," he said.

Because he enlisted to serve eight years in the army reserves - including six years of eligibility for any conflict that arises - Tafesse said he expected he would be sent to war eventually.

"I'm pretty sure within those six years I'll see some combat action," he said. "Before I joined I figured it would happen sometime."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.