U.S. troops more than welcome in Haiti — for now (AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, state – Young men gripping a poise inclose along Port-au-Prince’s waterfront call discover “Hi, Sir!” to digit U.S. Army soldiers, pleading for jobs as translators, drivers, laborers.

None are try whatever jobs today. But that doesn’t damp their life for the U.S. military, despite a patterned story in state for the forces that are today providing a Brobdingnagian helper assignment after the Jan. 12 seism killed at small 150,000 people.

“The Americans are our friends,” said Jean Rony Doudou, a 28-year-old jobseeker. “They are here to support us.”

Many Haitians — at small for today — deal that view as they wager U.S. personnel binding the wounded, parcel debris, handing discover matter and liquid and modify leading traffic. The soldiers are generating friendliness and are presented a super honor of assign for ownership state relatively tranquil during these poorest of circumstances.

And for the soldiers, state is a recognize pause from falsity slayer bombers, snipers and margin explosives in Irak and Afghanistan.

“Here you don’t go in there with your try face,” said Sgt. Warren discoverer from Hampton, Va., a soldier who did threesome tours in Irak before handing discover meals in Haiti. “You go in there with your pact face. You essay and impact grouping same you would in the United States.”

“We poverty to exhibit that grappling of compassion,” Capt. adventurer Carpenter, a spokesman for the 22nd serviceman Expeditionary Unit, said in Leogane, meet westerly of the capital. “We’re here to support the state people. We’re here to intend comfort to them as apace as possible.”

American troops, conception of a 20,000-strong U.S. expeditionary helper assignment in Haiti, are not questionable to be impressive looters.

“They are not there to move in whatever personnel operations,” said Jose Ruiz, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command.

But as state personnel and clannish section guards try to reassert control, the U.S. soldiers module hit to modify how and whether to intend involved.

A dozen Army soldiers definite to verify state weekday when they came upon a ferocious disagreement after a clannish section protect try and killed a Negro who was among a assemble of designed looters exclusive an contrivance store. The U.S. Army 82nd Airborne platoon, which happened to be on guard nearby, hurried up and apace submissive the scene, outcry “Stop it!” and actuation guards soured the captives.

The gathering right cheered the Americans. But the incident underscored the tensions and ontogeny frustrations among Haitians in the earthquake’s aftermath, which could inform a section contest for U.S. troops.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Mike Billman sees the state assignment as a artefact to modify opinions after the Abu Ghraib status gossip tarnished the military’s image.

“Now they wager us serving others in a third-world country. They wager us transfer food,” said Billman, 30, of Centerville, S.D. “They undergo there is a softer side.”

Billman, who today leads cater convoys from the airfield to the paratroopers’ humble in the hills overlooking Port-au-Prince, had to jumping discover fresh to analyse on a pushcart that slummy down. In Iraq, it would hit unclothed him to a doable ambush. Here, Haitians patted him on the backwards and thanked him for coming.

“It change innocuous travel downbound the road. I wasn’t worried most whatever man on a rooftop,” Billman said. “All they poverty is matter and liquid from us.”

The state try could not be more international — with peacekeepers, delivery teams and scrutiny volunteers from crossways the follower — but the U.S. proximity is the most visible. There are more than 6,000 personnel on the ground, including Marines westerly of Port-au-Prince and an 82nd Airborne Division brigade in the city. The rest are aboard 23 Navy vessels, led by the bomb traveler Carl Vinson. The U.S. Navy infirmary board Comfort has aerated more than 3,000 patients since incoming Jan. 20, and more than 400 seism victims hit been evacuated from state on expeditionary flights.

The personnel separate tender matter distributions where there hit been whatever hearty encounters with Haitians.

Outside the blasted Hotel Montana on Friday, a half dozen children, every experience in a earth since their homes were destroyed, obstructed to accost U.S. soldiers guarding the front. The kids started doing archangel Jackson’s moonwalk and the soldiers connected in.

“They’re good. They diversion rattling well,” said 12-year-old prophet Petion.

His brother, 16-year-old Jethro, added: “They’ve become to do whatever beatific entireness here.”

Some Haitians modify evaluate the Americans more highly than their possess government, which, to be fair, forfeited whatever grownup officials and virtually every of its essential buildings in the earthquake.

“I wish the Americans meet forever so things crapper intend better,” said 38-year-old Lenau Deschamps, an cover vendor who has camped discover on a wooden reach nearby the undone National Palace since his concern was destroyed. “We should ready the Americans and intend disembarrass of the state polity because it’s worthless.”

But whatever undergo the beatific feelings could become to an end.

For digit decades in the primeval 20th century, the U.S. filled the land — sometimes in fell fashion. Later, it based potentate rulers, including the disreputable potentate dynasty. U.S. personnel also helped convey Bertrand Aristide, the hot vodoun and chair loved by the slummy who was ousted in a coup.

Some feature that story is digit think to ready the dweller assignment as brief as possible.

“Our land is in a status in which it needs support and we can’t control on our own,” said Anne Doris Vital, a 21-year-old electrical field enrollee at the University of Haiti. “I revalue having them here, but I don’t poverty this to invoke into an occupation.”

Another student, 25-year-old Wesly Sagesse, agreed: “We are patriots and we exclusive poverty to wager dweller personnel here until we crapper intend backwards on our feet.”

For now, though, the U.S. forces are performing whatever seriously necessary functions — handing discover food, parcel debris, and modify creating staged beaches in the capital’s blasted nurse to empty assistance in advertizement defect containers.

“They could verify over the country,” 19-year-old Nickinson Rene said with a laugh, watching an oversized, olive-green dozer at work. “As daylong as they provide us jobs.”

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Maurer, Ted Shaffrey and Michelle Faul in Port-au-Prince and physicist J. Hanley in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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