Susan Collins: “I was totally surprised by the attitude of our soldiers upon my first arrival in Bosnia, about how positive they were…”

“I was totally surprised by the attitude of our soldiers upon my first arrival in Bosnia, about how positive they were about what they were doing and why they are there. I was totally set back, I was not expecting this, and I thought to myself, why do they feel this way? I thought back to 1995 when we were in there, in December of 1995, prior to any of the soldiers being deployed, and all of this destruction that was very visible. I knew by that destruction that there had to be some terrible war that had taken place there just in recent times, just recent months. But then, when I was there in December of 1997, there were people in the streets, guns were silent. I knew peace had arrived, and it was due to the United States soldiers and the other peacekeeping forces who were there.”