MOUNT VIS, Bosnia and Herzegovina — The view is beautiful, but the climb to the top can kill you.

Mount Vis, the isolated U.S. Army outpost, offers a panoramic view of Bosnia and its rolling green hills seeded with deadly land mines — a testament to the mountain post's strategic importance during this country's 3½-year civil war.

Before all the bloodshed, this was a place where Bosnians would climb to enjoy a picnic and view the captivating barrage of autumn colors from every direction.

"The view is really beautiful in the morning," said Pvt.Eric Hambrick. "If it's foggy in, the morning, it looks like you're looking down on water. This is just a great place to go to get away from it all."

Like most of the people at Mount Vis, Hambrick rotates here every three weeks as part of a security force from nearby Camp Dobol. The temporary security force outnumbers the soldiers who live here permanently by about 4 to 1.

The Army doesn't like to give exact numbers on force protection. The closest officials will come is saying it takes a platoon to take care of the security. That's anywhere from 20 to 40 soldiers. They supplement the 10 full-time soldiers here — five communications troops, four Army cooks and a medic.

There's no war to speak of these days, but troops are ever-vigilant of the possible threat. They guard towers and peer out in all directions — they can see Eagle Base, Comanche Base and Camp Dobol.

The guards stand fast near a locked gate that's opened only when approved Stabilization Force vehicles arrive or depart, and they walk the perimeter. When they're done with that, they do it again.

The climb to the top of Mount Vis — 450 feet above ground level — isn't an easy one, even in a military vehicle.

The trenches dug around the top of the mountain are remnants of the civil war. It's not hard to imagine Serbian soldiers crouched down in these foxholes as fighting raged all around.

During the heat of battle, this was Serbian-controlled territory. From this position, they could easily rain artillery on their enemies — the Bosnian Muslims.

"On five separate occasions the Muslims tried to overtake the mountain," said Spec. Cleavon Young, a member of the security force. "But the Serbs were too strong. They tried coming up one side of the mountain and then the other."

Young said the only time Serbs would leave the mountain is when they needed water. That task was assigned to the lowest-ranking Serbian soldiers, who would have to make their way down a mountainside by way of a dug-out trench toward a creek bed at the bottom.

The going was difficult: The Muslims mined the entire area. The Serbs also mined portions of the mountains to thwart any future Muslim attacks.

At one point during the war, around 1994, the Muslims made it to the top and would have overrun the place.

"But the Serb commander called in artillery on his own position" said Sgt. 1st Class Fidel Feliciano.

That put the Serbian troops in as much danger as the attacking Muslims. The artillery came from a nearby mountain, killing the commander's brother-in-law, but it served its purpose — the Bosnian Muslims retreated.

The Serbs didn't limit attacks on their ethnic rivals. In early 1994, they attacked a Swedish United Nations patrol from the mountaintop.

This was long before the Dayton peace agreement was signed in December 1995 and havoc reigned supreme in the region.

NATO eventually counterattacked months later, dropping three bombs on the outpost. Two exploded. One didn't.

The 500-pound unexploded bomb remains buried in the ground, now overgrown with grass and sectioned off with about 250 sandbags.

It was deemed stable by explosives specialists, but you won't see anyone stepping over those sandbags.

The inside joke among the soldiers in the know are the not-so-prophetic words of a Serbian commander when NATO forces first moved in as part of the Implementation Force in the spring of 1996.

"He swore he'd return to this mountain in one year," said Sgt. Bruno Morra. "That was three years ago."

These, days Mount Vis is under U.S. control. It serves as a communications outpost, set up with high-tech equipment that enables soldiers at various base camps to talk to one another via telephone.

If there are any doubts as to who lives here, one doesn't have to look any further than the huge helicopter pad, painted to resemble a yellow-and-black 1st Cavalry Division patch.

There's also a satellite dish perched on the mountainside for American Forces Network arid some bigger, surveillance-type satellite devices that the troops here don't like talking about.

"That's above my pay grade to talk about those," said Morra with an .uncomfortable smile.

A paved road up the mountain soon turns to gravel, and then to dirt. It winds around old houses and children playing by the side of the road. If they are scarred by the civil war, it doesn't show in their faces. Many of them look too young to remember the fighting.

But you also won't see any of them stray off the main road and into the mountain's thicket of weeds and overgrown foliage.

Mine-removal teams haven't yet made it to this part of Bosnia.

There's no post exchange at Mount Vis. The soldiers make do with a weight room and a tent where they can play table tennis, shoot pool and check out free videos. The only time they can get personal supplies is when they visit Camp Dobol, and then it's always in a convoy.

Inside the compound, the walk from one building or from one tent to the next is always a steep one. This is a mountain, after all.

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