Branch/Rank: United States Army/Staff Sgt.
Unit: B Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry of the 1st Infantry Division, stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany.
Date of Birth: 1972 - 25 yrs old
Home City of Record: Smiths Creek, MI
Date of Loss: 31 March 1999
Country of Loss: Macedonia/Serbia Yugoslavia
Loss Coordinates: last reported on a civilian road in Kumanovo, about 10 miles (16 km) from Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, and less than three miles (5 km) from the Kosovo border.
Status: DETAINEE — changed to POW 04/01/99
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Humvee/Ground
Missions: conducting a peacekeeping and observation mission near Macedonia's border with Kosovo
Other Personnel in Incident: Staff Sergeant Andrew Ramirez and Spec Steven Gonzales
Source: Compiled by the Last Firebase Veterans Archives Project from one or more of the following: raw data from US Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.

SYNOPSIS: On Thursday, April 1, 1999, Yugoslav authorities paraded three grim-faced and bruised American soldiers on Serbian television. The soldiers had been captured the day before near the Macedonian border.

The men were identified as Specialist Steven Gonzales, Staff Sergeant Christopher Stone and Staff Sergeant Andrew Ramirez.

All three soldiers were assigned to B Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry of the 1st Infantry Division, stationed in Schweinfurt, Germany. The soldiers disappeared after reporting they had been surrounded and had come under small arms fire. NATO forces and Macedonian police units immediately began searching for the missing three-man patrol.

When captured, the Americans were operating as part of a NATO force put in place "conducting a peacekeeping and observation mission" near Macedonia's border with Kosovo, which is a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.

Comments made by the American captives while on television were censored by the Yugoslavian government. But a lip reader told London's Mirror that Spec. Gonzales had said "To everyone at home, I'm real fit, and I want to get out of this prison." S/Sgt. Stone, his face smeared with blood, said, I'm not making any comment at all because I don't feel safe. I feel a bit sick about it all." The third captive, S/Sgt. Ramirez said nothing.

Immediately after the three Americans were shown on TV, there was debate about their legal status. United States officials first carefully avoided calling the soldiers POWs. They claimed the prisoners had been illegally abducted and demanded their immediate release.

Yugoslav authorities insisted the three were not POWs. They claimed the Americans had been captured on the Yugoslavian side of the border. Lawyers in Yugoslavia speculated the men could be charged with "waging aggression," which carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years, or "espionage," which has a maximum penalty of 20 years.

Yugoslav officials said they intended to try the American soldiers as criminals.

The International Committee of the Red Cross quickly moved declaring that the captives did qualify as POWs under the Geneva Convention treaty.

"For us it is very clear. There is an international armed conflict between NATO and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and these three captured soldiers are ... prisoners of war," ICRC spokeswoman Doris Pfister said.

Yugoslavia later signaled a retraction when its foreign minister, Zivadin Jovanovic, referred to the American captives as prisoners of war, a term that carries with it protected status under the treaty. Washington also changed position and began referring to the men as POWs.

The 1949 Geneva Convention was one of a series of international humanitarian treaties dating back to 1864. Terms of the treaty apply in cases of "armed conflict" as well as when war has been declared. Those terms dictate that captured soldiers must at all times be humanely treated and protected from abuse and public humiliation. They cannot be put on trial for engaging in ordinary acts of warfare for which the capturing country's own soldiers would not be charged.

"They can be tried if they are accused of war crimes or if they are accused of any crime which is linked to domestic law," Pfister said. "But what is important is that the fact of being on a mission for the American army is not a reason to try them."

Pfister said there also has been debate about whether showing the men on Yugoslav television violated a section of the convention that protects them from "insults and public curiosity," but the legal interpretation of the article was not clear.

The most important thing, Pfister said, is to have access to the soldiers and to see that they are being well-treated. The ICRC has asked Belgrade for unsupervised visits with the soldiers, but has so far received no reply.

By April 6, Yugoslavia had reversed its position and assured the international press that the American POWs would not be tried and would be released at the end of hostilities.

That same day, the Yugoslav leadership declared a "unilateral ceasefire" in honor of "the greatest Orthodox holiday, Easter." The Yugoslavians pledged to work on a settlement to the crisis which would allow the ethnic Albanian refugees to return to Kosovo.

The Clinton White House rejected the ceasefire, saying it was not interested in "hollow gestures."

U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen said the Serb ceasefire idea was "not only completely unacceptable but absurd."

At the same time, Spyros Kyprianou, a Greek who is the parliament speaker on the Mediterranean island Cyprus, announced that he would travel to Yugoslovia to secure the release of the three American prisoners.

Kyprianou suggested that NATO should observe a ceasefire over the Orthodox Easter holiday, if Yugoslavia would agree to free the three American servicemen.

NATO refused the offer.

On April 9, Kyprianou announced that the three U.S. POWs would not be returned home early. His talks in Belgrade to secure their release had failed.

The Cypriot envoy complained that within hours of his arrival in Belgrade, NATO intensified the bombing all around the Yugoslavian capital.

"It was expected … that during my stay at least some respect should have been shown and some understanding until I had finished my consultations," he said.

The Clinton administration responded by saying Mr. Kyprianou's failure was not a surprise.

The Yugoslavians have now hardened their position saying that the POWs will not be released until the war is settled.

Images of Army Staff/Sgt. Christopher J. Stone, and his comrades being paraded around on Serbian TV, their faces bruised showing signs of a fight, brought the reality of the conflict in Kosovo blindingly home to Capac, Michigan.

"We're pretty much in shock,'' Jim Stone, Christopher Stone' s father, told the Times Herald of Port Huron

"There are yellow ribbons on every tree on Main Street," said Gordon Bade, executive vice president of the CSB Bank in Capac. Customers come in and talk of little else, he said.

Eighteen hours after she had learned her husband, was one of three American soldiers captured by Serbian forces along the Macedonian border, Mrs. Stone, 24, met with the press but let her mother, Lisa McKinney, do the talking.

Mrs. Stone sat stiffly, white tissue in her hand, and staring straight ahead, as her mother delivered a short statement at the Fort Sam Houston Officers Club, thanking the nation for its support and begging the news media to leave them alone.

Photos of the couple's son, Ryan Christopher Stone, 4, lay on the table before her. Ryan stayed at home with family, Army officials said, watching TV and playing with Legos.

"We are proud of Chris and the other American soldiers, and we support them 100 percent," said Ms. McKinney.
"Our prayers are with the Ramirez and Gonzales families," she said, referring to other captured U.S. servicemen, Staff/Sgt. Andrew A. Ramirez, 24, of Los Angeles, and Spec. Steven M. Gonzales, 22, of Huntsville, Texas.

Staff/Sgt. Stone grew up in Kenockee Township, Mich., graduating from Capac High School in nearby Capac in May 1991. He joined the Army in August 1991, going through training as an infantry reconnaissance scout at Fort Knox, Ky. He later took airborne training at Fort Benning, Ga.

Mrs. Stone met Sgt. Stone in Germany in 1992, and they were married in December 1993 in Port Huron, Mich. Their son was born the next year.

Outside Capac Community Junior-Senior High School, former teachers remembered Stone as a B student who graduated in 1991 and immediately joined the Army.

"Unlike a lot of kids . . . Chris would finish hard, no matter what position he was in," said Ken Marzka, who coached Chris all three years he was a member of the cross-country team at Capak High School in Capak, Mich.
Mr. Marzka, who also taught Chris world history, described his former student as "funny without being the class clown, outgoing, and not afraid of anything."

When asked to describe his response when he learned Chris had been captured, Mr. Marzka replied, "At first I was shocked, but that quickly turned to anger. Now I'm feeling hurt, because one of my good kids is in deep trouble."