He Left Bosnia For Mount Airy. But His Heart Stayed Behind. Coming Home To The Ruins Of War

MOSTAR, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The boy who once fought with a Kalashnikov assault rifle has grown into a big, round-shouldered man with a memory as keen as a bullet. He conjures stories: a father killed by a grenade, a sister hit by sniper fire, bodies rotting on front lines, hungry dogs dodging tracers, pigeons roosting in bombed minarets.

Suad Slipicevic has other memories, too: the scent of mown grass blowing through the windows of a Tudor-style home in Mount Airy; the corsage of red roses and baby's breath his date, Emily Hewes, wore to the Germantown Friends School prom; dancing in a black tuxedo at the Bellevue; the temptation to stay on streets of wealth; the resolve to return to the ruins of war.

``I had to come back to Mostar,'' said Slipicevic, 19, a Muslim law student who arrived home in June after three semesters at Germantown Academy on a scholarship program. ``I have to help rebuild my country. Some people say, `Why are you so dumb to come back?' But I want to make a decent life for myself.''

In this perplexing city, boys such as Slipicevic were too early pressed into manhood against the rhythms of war. The Neretva River cuts the Mostar valley in half, with Croats controlling the west bank and Muslims the east. Some of the worst fighting in Bosnia's 3 1/2-year war whirled through Santiceva Street, where Croats and Muslims less than 30 yards apart strafed each other daily as buildings were whittled to dust.

The region's uneasy peace, enforced by NATO troops, is in danger of collapsing under pressure from two-bit warlords and unbottled ethnic hatreds. U.N. officials say Mostar - where Croats and Muslims still use different currencies - is a city capable of reigniting the Bosnian war. Bullets still zip through the night. Two weeks ago a car bomb exploded not far from Slipicevic's house, wounding more than 50 people.

Slipicevic's friends here cannot believe he is again walking through alleys where mortar shells and left-over grenades are shaped into coffee-table art. And his classmates from Germantown Academy never really grasped an ethnic war that defied sound bites. Only once - in an essay describing the 1993 death of his father - did he believe American students understood Bosnia's misery and madness.