Jacob is a member of the Army National Guard, Minnesota's Second Battalion, 136th Infantry, also known as the Task Force Bearcats. The TF Bearcats were serving in "Operation Active Harvest", a Nato Peacekeeping operation. The TF Bearcats have been in Bosnia Herzegovina since September of 2003.

Prior to that, Jacob had received intense training to prepare for his mission in Bosnia, partly in Minnesota and also in Georgia. Jacob used his training to collect firearms from civilians and throughout the countryside.

The soldiers actually returned to the United States on April 3, but were required to spend several days at Ft. McCoy, Wis., before returning to their Minnesota communities.

One Hundred TF Bearcats were in three buses as they exited Interstate 94 and headed up Lincoln Avenue in Fergus Falls. They were accompanied with a police car escort (and siren), and a TF Bearcat Army tank, to arrive at the armory in Fergus Falls at 2pm on Thursday, April 8th.

Aunt Cindy, Aunt Cathy, Uncle Mike and Ryan Payson and other friends were among a large crowd of Northwest Minnesotans who had gathered at the Armory in Fergus Falls to welcome the last 100 soldiers of the 136th. Jacob's family and friends reunited a second time later on that evening at Aunt Cindy's.

The family was hoping to reunite with Jacob in March, when the 136th division returned to Minnesota. But Jacob and another 99 of the TF Bearcats were delayed until April. They were suddenly interrupted from Bosnia to Kosovo for peacekeeping after an unexpected civil uprising.

That evening, while talking about why he was deployed to Kosovo, Jacob said "It was really weird, one day we were helping the Bosnians who had suffered under the hands of the Serbs, and 12 hours later we were helping Serbs who were subjected to ethnic unrest from Albanians!"

Jacob and Aunt Connie, a former Bosnian refugee resetllemnt worker, talked about Bosnia, the countryside, and the culture. "It (Bosnia) would be a beautiful country but the services aren't there. The trash is dumped everywhere, and old bombed out or broken cars are where you least expect them, dumped all over the place. It is going to take some cleaning up there." He commented on the Bosnian coffee, "I like mine with sugar. You only get a little but it'll get ya going, thats for sure."

In January 2004, Jacob appeared on the front cover of the Talon, (the official publication for Operation Joint Forge - Operation Active Harvest,) to the Fergus Falls Daily Journal. Within days Jacob was on the front cover of the journal. Community interest in the operation grew.

Not only did the Fergus Falls community support their soldier members - sons and daughters - who were serving their country in Bosnia, other Minnesota communities along with the 136th soldiers, provided aid to rebuild schools and soccer fields, school supplies and clothes for children and needy families. As of Feb. 16, the 136th battalion collected and distributed more than $50,000 in humanitarian aid from Minnesota communities.

Jacob, a member of the "Task Force Bearcats" was part of an effort that collected more than 29.5 tons of hand grenades, small arms ammunition, rifles, land mines and other miscellaneous weapons.

The 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry has been known as the Bearcats, a name that originated during the Civil War in a hand-to-hand combat engagement at the Battle of Mill Springs, Ky.

WELCOME HOME TO MINNESOTA, BEARCATS! WELCOME HOME, JACOB! WE ARE PROUD OF YOU, AND ARE GLAD THAT YOU ARE ALL HOME SAFE!

http://www.nato.int/sfor/indexinf/169/p07a/t02p07a.htm

Cosici - Task Force Bearcat soldiers had so much success with their Operation Active Harvest in the Kladanj and Sekovici opstinas earlier this December, they decided to return again in latter part of December.

This time, the Bearcats, Soldiers from the Minnesota Army National Guard's Company B, 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry, found themselves trudging in knee-deep snow up the steep and ice-covered hills in this small village on an Operation Active Harvest patrol.

The plan called for searching every outbuilding in this farming community, which is 1,800 feet above sea level, instead of just asking for the weapons.

"You get a little bigger hauls in remote areas," said Company Commander Capt. Tadd Vanyo, "but it is tougher getting to them and it takes a lot more manpower."

The extra effort was worth it. Combined with weapons and explosives turned in to the local authorities for their Internal Harvest, 20,000 rounds, 30 weapons and about a dozen land mines were collected this day. Stabilization Force Soldiers like the Bearcats support the local authorities in these weapon collections.

Vanyo said the areas his Soldiers searched were along the borders of areas which saw heavy fighting during the 1992-95 War. He noted these areas are the closest his soldiers have been to the former front lines, about five kilometers.

During the war, Sekovici was an almost entirely Serbian town. Kladanj, just west of Sekovici, was a Muslim-held town. Sekovici was hit 800 times by shellfire from the Muslim side.
Spc. Brian Kutter said his platoon had previously collected weapons frequently from these opstinas.

Vanyo noted that the mission was started because local authorities told SFOR of reports of rifles being fired and possible heavy explosions in these areas.

Kutter and his fellow Soldiers also learned that some of the current residents didn't know that weapons were on their property. Many residents returned to their homes after the war to find they had been inhabited by other citizens.

The Soldiers were very respectful of this situation.
Kutter told a woman, whose farm's outbuilding yielded two bayonets and several rounds hidden in its rafters, "Ma'am, I want to thank you for your cooperation today. That's why we are here to keep this area safe because you don't know weapons are being planted on your property."

Vanyo said his Soldiers searched outbuildings, and primary locations like haystacks and abandoned cars.
The snow assisted in the search this day, single human tracks to a shed, haystack or wood line are indicators of suspicious activity.

"We've even found weapons hanging in trees," he said.
Other finds have included grenades in buckets and hidden underneath mattresses.

Vanyo noted that most residents are cooperative but there are still some who want to keep their weapons.
He assumed the reason for this is either to protect themselves or make themselves feel safer.

Either way, Vanyo's soldiers are doing these searches with high morale.

"Now, we're finding out (these citizens) are trying to make a difference and doing something about it so morale has been extremely high," he said.

Vanyo summed up these missions the best, "Yeah you're tired but you have a sense of purpose and accomplishment."

PHOTO:
Spc. Jake Payson, TF Bearcat, checks the action of an M48, 8 mm Mauser rifle collected during Operations Active Harvest.