Story: Nearly Killed by a Little Red Car - Haiti, 1995

On Dec 30, 1995, I and three of my soldiers loaded into our white, UN emblazoned HMMWVs (Hummvee) and headed north out of Port au Prince. We were going to spend the night at the camp in Gonaieves with one of my platoon leaders and the soldiers there before heading up to Cap Haitien in the far north for New Years Eve. About an half-hour out from Gonaieves, in the middle of rice farming country, a little red car tried to pass on the left. If you've ever been to Haiti you'll know that the roads leave much to be desired.

As the car came up even with our truck, it ran off the left side of the road. The shoulder of the road was about 3 or so inches below the road surface, and the tires slipped and struggled to get a grip on the pavement. Finally, the tires caught enough traction and shot the car across the road, missing us by inches. It was grace and my driver's reflexive stomp of the brakes that kept the car from slamming into us and most likely, at that speed, killing us.

Tires screeching, the little red car careened across the road as the driver tried in vain to regain control, and went airborne into a drainage ditch along the side. The impact threw up a huge wave of water, nearly flipping the car end over end. If the water hadn't been there, it would have been disastrous. As it was, the car went all the way onto the front end before slamming back down in the ditch. All of the windows exploded outward with the impact.

By this time, we had stopped. Leaving my driver, Specialist Shinkle, and his M-16 to guard the two vehicles, the other three of us ran back to assess the damage. As we got to the crash site, the people had already gotten out of the car. Unbelievably, nobody was dead. Even more unbelievably, no one was even seriously injured. Bruised and bloodied, but amazingly OK. But, that's when the fun began.

From out of the wreckage an irate woman came and started accusing us of running her off the road.

"You tried to kill us!!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!?" I asked, incredulously.

"You did that on purpose! You @$$#%^$!!"

Her command of English was amazing...especially those words that are not common to polite conversation. This was no polite conversation.

"You're supposed to be here to help us, not to kill us!!" She screamed.

"I don't know what you're talking about! You almost killed US!!" I said. "The way you guys were driving all over the road, it's a miracle we didn't end up in that ditch!"

As she ranted, she got more and more animated and pushed up in my face. The three of us began to get a bad feeling. Spontaneous riots were not uncommon in Haiti, and the last thing we wanted to do was get involved with one first hand. Already, people were materializing out of nowhere. It was like that movie, "Children of the Corn." Already 20 to 30 people were crowding around, watching the spectacle.

As the lady kept coming at me, stabbing her finger at me like a weapon, my Sergeant, a 105 pound, 5'2" female, began getting in her face.

"You take a step back," Sergeant Heath said, "Or I'm gonna have to get angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

"She's right," I said. "You really wouldn't!"

"F#*& you!" she said, "F#*& you!! How am I going to get to Cap Haitien?!?" she asked. "We have to go to a wedding!!"

"Hey, that's not my problem," I said. "We didn't cause this accident, and since you're all OK, we're leaving!!" I turned to my soldiers, and said, "Let's get out of here."

Our rules of engagement could be pretty much summed up in the catch phrase, "If we beat them, we treat them." In other words, if an accident or injury was as a result of something we did, we were responsible for taking care of those involved. In our minds, this situation was pretty cut and dried...we weren't responsible for the accident, so we needed to just get out of there, before the situation got worse. As it was, by stopping to see if there were serious injuries, we had put ourselves in a potentially dangerous position. The US and UN have incomparably more money than the average Haitian, and any injustice, from running over a goat or chicken to more major incidents were viewed as opportunities for free cash.

We turned, and resolutely walked past the still steaming wreck back to our HMMWVs. Shinkle was dutifully guarding the trucks, but looking pretty nervous. Nearly as many Haitians were around him as were with us. As we moved back to the car, the woman and her crowd matched our every step.

She kept yelling and accusing us of deliberately running them into the ditch. I told her, "Look, you guys are alive and relatively unhurt. We can't do anything else. As soon as we get to the next town, I'll notify the police, and they'll help you. Now, we're leaving." We loaded up, started the trucks, and headed out.

She chased us, cursing and raving furiously until we couldn't see her anymore.

As we came into Point l'Espere a few miles down the road, we passed a Haitian policeman on a bicycle. I flagged him down, Shinkle pulled over, and I told the officer in my best High School French,

"Il y'a un accident. Quatre blessee, mais pas de morts. La bas, peut-être quinze minutes." I said, pointing south. He nodded, seemed about as interested as if he'd just been told that his coffee was ready, and pedaled off. We drove on.

About thirty minutes later, we arrived at the camp in Gonaieves. Immediately, I called the tactical operations center back at Port au Prince, and let them know about the incident. Figuring that it was best to cover ourselves, we all wrote up affidavits to fax back to base describing the events. Having a particular flair for writing, Sergeant Heath wrote, "I seen this little red car shoot across the road..." We faxed all of the statements down to Port au Prince, and spent some time just letting the adrenaline wear off. Though I am not a smoker, that day I almost became one, as Sergeant Heath and Specialist Shinkle chain smoked a pack together.

As we were reflecting on the adventurous trip up from Port au Prince, a Captain from the Special Forces unit based at the camp came walking up to us.

"There's a really pissed-off lady at the front gate who says a UN vehicle ran her off the road south of here. You guys know anything about that?"

"Um....did she say what the vehicle looked like?" I asked.

"White HMMWV, UN markings...like those over there." He said, pointing at the trucks we'd just come up in.

"Really? That sucks...though I doubt that any UN people would deliberately run anyone off the road. UN folks are here to help the Haitians, not to kill them!"

"She wants to make a formal complaint to the UN for attempted murder," said the Captain.

"I see," I said. "Attempted murder...that's pretty serious. Does she have any proof?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," the Special Forces Captain said, "but I'll tell her you're not here." He grinned, and walked off.

The four of us looked back and forth at each other, and started laughing, realizing that we were now on the lam. Fugitives at large. Wanted for attempted murder, no less!

Nothing ever came of the encounter with the Little Red Car, and we eventually made it up to Cap Haitien to ring in the New Year, keeping a sharp lookout for our furious friend the whole time.