PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti- It is not often that a foreign-born American Soldier is deployed to return to his country of origin to help his people in their time of need. One Soldier here was able to do just that.

1st Lt. Bob Rousseau, a Haitian-American, serving with the 32^nd Medical Brigade at Ft. Sam, Houston, Texas, deployed last week to assist the Joint Task Force with his skills as a translator. With difficulties communicating with the native Haitian people, translators who spoke the native languages were in high demand.

“I was born here. I grew up here,” said Rousseau. “In Haiti we speak two languages. Creole is our native language and we learned French in school.”

Rousseau began translating for the Joint Task Force at internal displacement camps. According to the United States Agency of International Development (USAID) at least 700,000 people in the Port-Au-Prince metropolitan area, whose homes were destroyed as a result of the earthquake, were relocated to camps in various locations around Haiti.

“The hardest thing for me is to see people that I knew that used to be well off. They had everything,” said Rousseau. “Now, they are asking for help.”

Rousseau witnessed the resilience of the Haitian people firsthand at these camps.  “When you go to the camps, you see people who have lost everything, but still are fighting to live. They walk with thei head held high,” Rousseau said. “They have shelters made from tarps that people donated and some even have tents. Some have neither but have made drapes from their clothes,” Rousseau commented proudly on the resiliency of his people. “We will not give up. We will do whatever it takes to survive,” said Rousseau. “And we are doing that right now.”

From the tragedy, that according to USAID has claimed the lives of an estimated 230,000 people, good things can still come. Things like hope and reassurance. “The best thing that we are doing here is just being present,” said Rousseau. “People see us at the camps and it gives them hope and reassurance that something is being done for them.”

As a Haitian-American, Rousseau sees the positive effects that the presence of the U.S. Army has on his native countrymen.  “They see what we are doing, and they believe in that,” said Rousseau. “They believe in the U.S. Military.”

by Spec. William R. Begley
11th PAD