Mohammad Ali Hasan, who retired as a brigadier general in the Bangladesh army, says the year he spent as a peacekeeper in strife-torn Sierra Leone was the best in a military career that spanned 35 years.
Hasan commanded more than 4,000 Bangladeshi troops that joined a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the African country for 12 months from December 2000.
"There I saw the difference between peace keeping and peace enforcement," Hasan told Reuters. "Peace keepers are loved by people on both sides of the conflict. The peace enforcers often work to achieve an ulterior motive."
Bangladesh, once described as an "international basket case" by former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, is the world's biggest contributor of troops to United Nations peace missions.
Frequently associated in the public mind with disasters, strikes and natural catastrophes, it is now projecting a new role for itself on the international stage by despatching its troops to wear the blue helmets of UN peacekeepers everywhere.
It has about 7,000 soldiers serving in seven countries, and defence officials say a total of about 50,000 Bangladeshi troopers have participated in UN missions since 1988.
"Peacekeeping is a part and parcel of Bangladesh's foreign policy," said Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan. "Bangladesh is ready to undertake any peacekeeping duty.
"We are also ready to go to Iraq wearing blue helmets under UN supervision," he added, but cautioned, "Bangladesh troops go to foreign countries only to maintain peace, not to shoot anybody or to get shot by any one."
Retired peacekeeper Hasan said he learnt valuable lessons during his stint in Sierra Leone.
"Successful peacekeeping needs understanding of the grievances of the people in conflict and trying to appease them. We could do it, so we were successful," Hasan said.
"I came back in late 2001 with happy memories of the country, where we were able to strike a cease-fire and then establish peace between the government and rebels."
The peacekeepers were able to do this through steps to build confidence with the rebels, by training them in agriculture, sharing rations with them and distributing medicines, he added.
Peacekeeping is the cornerstone of Bangladesh's diplomacy, said Reaz Rahman, an adviser to the foreign ministry.
"Bangladesh was the main peacekeeping force in Mozambique," he told Reuters. "In Kuwait we did an excellent job in clearing mines and bombs. Look at Sierra Leone, where our soldiers stood their ground and earned the love of the people."
But success in peacekeeping operations has had its costs.
Bangladesh has lost 62 army officers and troops to accidents such as aircrashes or disease during peace missions. About 70 more were wounded, say officials.
The latest Bangladeshi victim was Major Mohammad Shahjahan, killed in a helicopter crash along with 23 UN staff in Sierra Leone last month, though an air crash in Benin last December that killed 15 army officers was its most tragic loss so far.
Yet Bangladesh, which won independence from Pakistan after a bloody nine-month war in 1971, at a cost of millions of lives, remains undaunted and keen to participate in future UN missions.
Army officials said the aim of the blue-helmet soldiers was to raise high the flag of Bangladesh. "The glorious role of our peacekeepers has helped erase the country's bad name and spruced up its image. Now we are a respected nation," Reaz Rahman said.
Though every death of a peace keeper triggers profuse tributes at home and abroad, his family bleeds inside despite government promises of life-long support for his dependants.
Recently thousands gathered to pay their respects when the coffin of Shahjahan, killed in the helicopter crash, was brought back to his home in Comilla district, south of Dhaka.
He had joined the peace mission only two weeks earlier.
"Bring they home the peacekeeper dead," chanted a village teacher, as the corpse arrived, draped in a UN flag.
Peacekeeping garners not only prestige but also money and affection from distant lands.
Bangladesh joined the UN peace missions in the late 1980s but its troops were only freed up in large contingents after it struck a peace deal in 1998 with rebels at home - tribal insurgents in the south-eastern Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Defence officials say Bangladesh has only a low level of defence outlay, amounting to 1.3 percent of GDP, despite the peacekeepers' success. The allocation was $730 million against a total budget of $10 billion for the fiscal year to June 2004.
"It is regrettable that our politicians do not realise the need for higher budget in this sector," said an army official, who asked not to be named.
The role of Bangladesh's defence force in international peacekeeping is a significant foreign exchange resource worth $200 million a year, he said.
Bangladesh joined the UN in 1974, and since it joined the UN peacekeeping club in 1988, more than 50,000 of its troops have participated in 30 UN peace missions.
It now has some 150,000 army troops, 30,000 paramilitary soldiers and 100,000 police and auxiliary law enforcers.