"X-ray, this is Blue 5, we're taking direct fire."

What haunts Sgt. 1st Class James Lashelle, the platoon sergeant for the three U.S. soldiers who were captured by Serbian forces last week while patrolling Macedonia's border with Kosovo, is the tone of Staff Sgt. Christopher Stone's voice when he radioed in that they were in trouble. Stone's voice was so calm, Lashelle says, he at first thought the three soldiers might be joking.

But the call that came seconds later made clear it was no joke.

"They're all over us. We're trapped. We're trapped."

And then the radio went dead.

"I really feel bad about it. I get very frustrated," Lashelle said Wednesday. Like almost all the 400 U.S. soldiers here in Macedonia preparing for a possible future deployment to Kosovo, Lashelle constantly retraces step by step the moments that led to the disappearance of the three soldiers many here knew well: Staff Sgt. Christopher J. Stone, from Michigan; Staff Sgt. Andrew A. Ramirez, from Los Angeles; and Spc. Steven Gonzalez, from Texas. All are younger than 26 years old.

Their fellow soldiers are no doubt encouraged by the efforts of Cyprus President Spyros Kyprianou to secure a release, although State Department officials warned not to count on it. The soldiers are still disturbed by the Macedonians' failure to help their early search for the men. As U.S. and NATO troops scoured the mountainous border area in the moments and hours after the three went missing March 31, Lashelle said, local villagers threw stones, cursed and mocked them.

"The local nationals showed their dislike of us. They threw stones and made gestures. They were very lackadaisical. They said they knew nothing" about the missing soldiers, said Lashelle. Many of the villagers who live along Macedonia's rugged border with Serbia are Serbs themselves, and make no secret of their dislike of the U.S. soldiers and the NATO airstrikes against Serbia.

"For me, it's kind of disappointing, because we're out here trying to help this country," said Sgt. Ronald Hintay, 29, a U.S. soldier on his second tour as a peacekeeper in Macedonia. The first time, in 1995, Hintay remembers, the Macedonians smiled and waved at the blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers. Now, the U.N. mission has been canceled, 12,000 NATO troops have arrived in Macedonia to prepare to deploy to Kosovo to the north as peacekeepers, and NATO has carried out a two-week campaign of airstrikes against Serbia that has been followed by an exodus of more than 150,000 Kosovar refugees to Macedonia. And the Macedonians have changed their minds about the foreign troops. "The little kids still wave, but teen-agers throw rocks at us," Hintay said.

"When our soldiers were here wearing blue helmets, the populace was indifferent or friendly," says Brig. Gen. John Craddock, the commander of the U.S. forces in Macedonia. "Now, we're wearing green helmuts and green uniforms, and those who were friendly before are ambivalent, and those who were ambivalent are unfriendly."

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