U.S. military draws down deeply in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Six Haitian children cling to Lt. Ben Stollerman's hands, sleeves and fatigue pants as the U.S. Navy engineer negotiates one of Haiti's biggest camps for earthquake refugees.

"I feel like the Pied Piper," he says, grinning as he takes a break from pointing out projects he's directed to help reduce flooding in a sea of makeshift shelters that 47,000 people will likely call home for many months to come.

Stollerman says he's tried to explain to the children — though he's not sure they grasp it — that he won't be around forever. Next week, he ships out.

From a high of 22,000 troops spearheaded by the now-departed 82nd Airborne two weeks after the devastating Jan. 12 quake, the U.S. military operation here is now down to 1,300 troops.

As of June 1, the Louisiana National Guard will be in charge of a 500-person contingent, based in Gonaives, a flood-prone city north of the capital where 800 people died two years ago in three hurricanes and a tropical storm.

Other National Guard units will rotate in every two weeks from Nevada, Montana, Arizona, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, said Maj. Gen. Simeon Trombitas, who heads U.S. Army-South and is in command of Joint Task Force-Haiti for its last month.

But the thousands of troops of Operation Unified Response, who helped keep the peace, distribute food and provide an overall feeling of safety for quake-stricken Haitians, will be a thing of the past.

They will be missed at the old military airport, where Stollerman works.

"The Americans' leaving is kind of sad because they get things done," Marie Ange Joseph, a 36-year-old street vendor whose house collapsed and whose husband lost his customs inspector job in the quake, said as Navy engineers installed steel grates over open sewer holes nearby. "If things were left up to the Haitians, they wouldn't get done."

Children scurried and slipped about near one of the holes, the stench of human waste strong even a few shacks away where a bare-chested young man sold moonshine and cigarettes and people played cards at a tarp-covered tavern.

An eight-person Southern Command contingent will remain in the capital, Port-au-Prince, with a handful of Chinook and Blackhawk helicopters.

The Navy engineers, or Seabees, also will remain in Haiti, to protect those among the 1.3 million still crowded in tent camps who are at high risk from flash flooding.