By Phillip O'Connor

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

LEOGANE, Haiti — Pat Bradley stood on a rocky beach and stared at tons of packaged food and fresh water. Just a few miles away, people were starving. 

He wandered past pallet after pallet, stacked head high with precious commodities, enough to help thousands. He knew that more aid would be pouring ashore in coming days. He shook his head in disbelief.

"How are we going to get this out?" he said.

Beside him walked a frustrated U.S. Marine.

For more than a week, Gunnery Sgt. Joshua Wruble and his men had been upset by how slow the United Nations had been in distributing American relief supplies to Haitians in desperate need. The Marines felt helpless. They were ordered not to hand out the food themselves. Instead, the aid was to be delivered under the auspices of the U.N., part of an effort to help build the organization's credibility among the Haitian people.

To Wruble and the 140 other men of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, part of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the delays just didn't seem right.

He removed his ever-present wraparound sunglasses. The clean skin behind them stood in sharp contrast against the rest of his sun-baked, dirt-caked face; the 33-year-old Fort Lauderdale native looked like a raccoon. The tough-talking Gunny stared at all the goods with nowhere to go, then turned to Bradley. In an unfamiliar, almost pleading voice, he asked, "Can you do it, Pat?"

Bradley had been through so much since he had arrived two weeks before. He had pulled off what he considered one small miracle, bringing aid to a destroyed orphanage that no one had reached. Could he do it again, except bigger this time?

CRISIS AID

Bradley, 55, of Oakville, has responded to humanitarian disasters around the world since he established International Crisis Aid in St. Louis eight years ago. After a few frustrating days trying to get into Haiti, he finally arrived in Port-au-Prince late on the night of Jan. 19. Then, he had difficulty reaching an area that hadn't been reached by other relief crews — his specialty.

Finally, he made it to Leogane, a district of 200,000 people about 18 miles down the coast from Port-au-Prince. Aid and relief workers had poured into the capital city, but Leogane remained largely ignored, despite being the epicenter of the quake. Government officials estimated as much as 90 percent of the structures in Leogane were destroyed, and tens of thousands perished.

Far off a main road, Bradley discovered an orphanage. Its three-story dormitory and sanctuary had collapsed, and 85 hungry children were forced to sleep on open ground. He promised to help but had no idea where he would get the food, water and building materials the orphans so desperately needed.

Meanwhile, Wruble was facing his own frustrations.

Kilo Company had flown from Navy ships into Leogane on Jan. 19 aboard CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters. Their orders were to support the U.N. in water and food distribution. The infantry unit set up a landing zone in a cow pasture and dubbed it Mongoose. 

Almost immediately, helicopters began ferrying in humanitarian supplies from the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and amphibious assault ship Bataan. But it would be nearly 30 hours before the first U.N. truck showed up, even though the U.N. base was less than a mile away. It would be an additional 24 hours before the second arrived. Soon, aid was piling up at the landing zone.

Morale only got worse when Marines began to hear rumors that U.N. officials were selling the aid on the black market and showing favoritism to certain groups at distribution sites.

"For all the power the United States Marine Corps brings to bear, we remained unable to get the supplies to the people who needed it most," Wruble said. "For the first time in my 16 years, I began to question our ability to accomplish our assigned mission."

The Marines were three days in when fate intervened in the form of Bradley and Dennis Russell, a suburban Atlanta pastor who had teamed with Bradley to make the trip. Bradley and Russell arrived at the landing zone in search of food, water and material to shelter the children at the orphanage.

A partnership was formed. The Marines gave Bradley the food and water he needed for the orphanage. In turn, for more than a week, Bradley and Russell went to the landing zone three or four times a day. They loaded rented trucks, then distributed the food to orphanages and villages. 

During the next eight days, the pair delivered 38,000 gallons of purified and bottled water and 5,506 cases of food, enough to feed 66,000 people. In the same time frame, the U.N., with armed Sri Lankan soldiers to provide security, managed to distribute only 632 cases of food from the landing zone.

The Marines quickly assigned the pair a nickname: "Two men and a truck."

Meanwhile, Bradley's mission was taking shape back at the orphanage. It began when the Marines and the U.N. supplied food, water, powered milk and blankets. After Bradley met several times with Canadian officials, medics from Canada showed up to treat the children. Soon after, Canadian sailors from the destroyer Athabaskan arrived by bus. They cleared trash and debris from the site, and built three wood-framed dormitories.

"It is hard work, it is hot work and it is very rewarding work," Lt. Commander Terry Moore said.

A few days later, a Canadian Army engineer showed up and surveyed the scene. Not long after, heavy equipment arrived to haul away the rubble of the collapsed buildings. 

"God is good," Bradley said

BIGGER CHALLENGE

After the success at the landing zone, Kilo Company pulled out of the area and relocated along the beach, where its amphibious vehicles could ferry more supplies to the island. As Bradley and Wruble surveyed the scene, they knew they faced a larger version of the backlog at the landing zone.

Using the same strategy as before, Bradley and Russell took on the challenge. They began delivering hundreds of pallets of food to orphanages and villages. Within three days, the pair had emptied the vast majority of the inventory — 8,224 cases, enough to feed almost 100,000 people. By then, the Marines were told that they could begin directly distributing supplies to locals. 

"Had it not been for Pat and Dennis, the Marines' success in this area would have been significantly reduced," Wruble said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador, American military commanders as well as the U.N. and U.S. Agency for International Development officials in charge of Haiti met with Bradley and the Marines in a tent not far from Landing Zone Mongoose. The officials were impressed by how quickly the Marines had covered so much ground and maintained control. They also singled out the work of Bradley's group.

His partnership with the Marines served as a blueprint for distribution in the devastated region. By making smaller-scale, planned deliveries, Bradley had been able to avoid the violence breaking out at some large distribution sites operated by the U.N. and others. And he had done it without armed security or razor wire to hold back crowds.

"They figured out doing it the way we were was the most effective way," Bradley said.

As the meeting broke up, Air Force General Duncan McNabb, head of U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, approached Bradley and slipped a half-dollar size coin into his hand. Commanders often present such custom-minted coins for a job well done.

"Without God's hand none of this would have come about the way it's come about," Bradley said. "To get the amount of people fed in that short of a time period, I don't know how to describe it other than God is blessing this work."

APPRECIATION

Exhausted yet exhilarated, Bradley said Americans should know that the Haitians are grateful for the aid they are receiving. They aren't looking for handouts, but for help restarting their lives. 

"They're not going to be able to do it on their own and not without a significant amount of help," he said before heading back to St. Louis. He arrived home Saturday.

Wruble has encouraged Bradley and Russell to keep working in Haiti, so they could set an example for other humanitarian groups. He even teased Bradley about joining the Corps. 

"Our ability to bring the resources ashore and provide the necessary security, coupled with your complete devotion to an efficient, honest and timely distribution has saved thousands of lives," Wruble said in a letter to Bradley.

How had Bradley done it ? How was it possible? With only two workers and a handful of Haitians. Wruble could offer only one explanation.

"Nothing short of a miracle."

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