Hillary's big adventure

Politics: Hillary Clinton may be surprised to learn that other women braved the Tuzla Air Base tarmac in 1996. I did—and I was four months pregnant | Mindy Belz

Sasa Kralj/AP

Let the record show that both the Democratic presidential candidate and this editor felt comfortable enough in the spring of 1996 to within two weeks of one another bring our daughters to the same war zone.

On March 13, 1996, my driver and I (with my unborn daughter) turned into a dusty road with a hand-painted sign and Task Force Eagle crest marking the way to the air base. It had been a long and endlessly jolting ride across Mt. Majevica and along high ridges from Croatia to Bosnia, skirting holes where landmines had been dug up and finding our way around river beds where bridges had been destroyed. The winter's snow was beginning to melt, and while the high mountain roads had been treacherous, everywhere Bosnians were recovering from war: burning off fields for planting, painting storefronts in downtown Tuzla, stacking firewood on apartment balconies where electricity was scarce and wood fires remained the only way to stave off the Balkan cold.