Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

times throughout the night to present the same documentation
to other authorities in other towns.
We traveled through the Czech Republic for most of
December 13. At approximately 1700, we reached the
Slovakian border where we exchanged escort officers. At
each border, a military officer from that country would
board the train and act as an escort until we got to the next
border crossing. Unfortunately, these escort officers could
not speak English, leaving us without the capability of
communications with rail personnel regarding our current
location and our estimated time of arrival into Taszar.
We reached the Hungarian border at about 2130 on
December 13. For reasons still unknown to us, we sat at the
border for more than 3 hours before the train continued on
its way at approximately 0100 on December 14.
I woke up at about 0600, and the train was stopped once
again. We had apparently been stopped for some time
considering the amount of snow that had accumulated on
our rail cars and on the track in front of us. We had
absolutely no idea where in Hungary we were, or how close
we might be to our final destination. I moved throughout the
passenger car that I was assigned in order to determine how
everyone was doing and whether we had any problems that
needed to be addressed. We soon discovered that the
running water on the train had stopped, thus preventing us
from washing our hands or flushing the toilets. At the same
time, I discovered that heat had gone out in the second
passenger car, and the temperature was dropping to a
critical point. I immediately contacted the engineer. Neither
he nor any of his crew spoke one word of English, and none of
our personnel spoke Hungarian. After “sign-languaging”
our way through the issue, the engineer was finally able to
communicate to me that we were only a few minutes from
Taszar. We got the train rolling again shortly thereafter and
pulled into the loading dock in Taszar at about 0930.
We arrived to an environment of utter chaos. I had
various individuals directing me to do five different
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