ABSTRACT
Security was tight at the main gate of the U.S. Army Southern European Task Force headquarters in Vicenza, Italy. SETAF is the only base in Europe tasked to provide rapid deployment airborne and assault forces to hot spots from southern Africa to the northern reaches of Norway. Capable of “forced entry” within seventy-two hours, SETAF has been the leading edge of the everincreasing “Operations Other than War” (OOTW). In August 1994, its airborne troops deployed to Rwanda on Operation Support Hope; in December 1995, SETAF was the lead element of the peace implementation forces into Bosnia-Herzegovina; in April 1996, a company from SETAF went to Monrovia, Liberia, with special operations forces to facilitate noncombatant evacuation operations; in November 1996, it was back in Africa, to lead Joint Task Force Guardian Assistance for Rwandan refugees in Zaire; in March 1997, it again led a Joint Task Force in the Congo as part of Operation Guardian Retrieval for potential evacuation of Zaire. And from March to July 1999, SETAF was the major staging area for Task Force Hawk during Operation Allied Force in Kosovo.
