PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- They put smiles on the faces of the
                  desperate and hopeless. They built toilets and showers for orphans used to
                  squatting outside and bathing in drains. They helped farmers get produce to
                  market.

                  Now American troops are packing up to leave Haiti after a humanitarian
                  mission that probably saved hundreds of lives and made those of countless
                  others more livable.

                  Maj. Marian Nutt, an Air Force clinical nurse, struggles to find words to
                  describe how long-suffering Haitians reacted to being treated -- at last --
                  like human beings.

                  "They come to us in their Sunday best, as though to receive something not of
                  this world," Nutt says. "It must feel like a miracle."

                  Marine Gunnery Sgt. David Marcussen, a 40-year-old military police
                  officer, was so enthusiastic about his work in Haiti that he extended his tour
                  of duty twice.

                  "Marines are not only to be reckoned with as a destructive force. We can
                  also help get a country back onto its feet," he says.

                  "Haiti has great, untapped potential," adds Marcussen, who expresses
                  admiration for the courage of ordinary Haitians and says he will remember
                  the smiles of gratitude from the children.

                  Haiti, however, is far from being on its own feet.

                  After receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S., it remains
                  gripped by the political power struggles that have helped keep it one of the
                  most impoverished nations on Earth for the nearly 200 years since it became
                  the world's first black republic.

                  Still, thousands of Haitians have been helped by the work of the U.S.
                  military Support Group, which has been based here since the last American
                  combat troops left two years ago, remnants of the 20,000-soldier force sent
                  by President Clinton to oust a military regime in 1996.

                  The group's departure over the next few months will mean the end of more
                  than five years of a permanent U.S. military presence in the troubled
                  Caribbean nation, a mission that cost the Pentagon dlrs 20 million a year.

                  The soldiers built a highway bypass from the capital's periphery into its
                  congested center, along with the 60-meter (200-foot) Grise River bridge,
                  which relieves traffic congestion and gives farmers an easy way to get their
                  produce to city markets.

                  The troops dug wells that bring safe water to hundreds of slum dwellers who
                  used to have to walk miles hefting buckets.

                  At Cazeau orphanage, on Port-au-Prince's outskirts, soldiers built 12 rooms
                  and installed a latrine and showers for kids.

                  The group's doctors helped Mirline Antoine to smile after Haitian hospitals
                  had given up on the 18-year-old so disfigured by a cleft palate and lip that
                  she could do no more than grimace and communicate in grunts.

                  A three-hour facial operation gave her "a more normal appearance," says
                  Nutt, the Air Force nurse. "Her speech has improved, and now she smiles."

                  Raymonde Pierre-Gustave, a 34-year-old mother-of-three, suffered a
                  broken pelvis in a traffic accident. Doctors at Port-au-Prince's General
                  Hospital turned her away. So she went to the Americans, who helped her
                  heal.

                  "I had nowhere else to turn to," she says. "I won't forget what they've done
                  for me."

                  In sharp contrast to the gratitude expressed by those who profited directly
                  from the Americans' work is the indifference and sometimes even hostility
                  from others -- including many who may have harbored unrealistic
                  expectations.

                  The private Radio Quisqueya reported in late August that an unscientific
                  survey found many Haitians complained the Americans had not contributed
                  enough to economic progress or security. Others only grudgingly agreed the
                  U.S. presence might have dissuaded troublemakers from trying to restore a
                  dictatorship in Haiti, the report said.

                  Some Haitians fear the departure of the Support Group, coupled with the
                  impending end of a U.N. mission, could encourage enemies of an already
                  dysfunctional democracy.

                  A business leader in Port-Au-Prince said Monday that a grenade exploded
                  in front of Haiti's Chamber of Commerce headquarters, damaging the
                  building's facade but causing no injuries.

                  Attackers hurled the grenade over the fence of the building Saturday night,
                  said past Chamber of Commerce President Gerard Bailly. The attack across
                  the street from the U.S. Embassy followed the chamber's efforts to stem
                  violence against business owners.

                  During the time medical troops have been on the island as part of the U.S.
                  mission, they have treated 117,000 patients, mostly the poorest of the poor
                  from metropolitan slums. Other soldiers built and repaired 20 kilometers (13
                  miles) of roads, renovated 48 schools, drilled and repaired 64 wells, and
                  built a boat ramp.

                  The group's has distributed more than 85 tons of donated goods and
                  clothing and more than 180 tons of assorted humanitarian items flown in on
                  U.S. aircraft.

                  By early next year, the U.S. military camp near the international airport will
                  be dismantled along with its clinic.

                  National Guard and reserve soldiers will be sent to do much the same work.
                  But they will stay for short periods only and serve all over the country,
                  probably meaning a reduction in the medical services in the capital, which
                  perhaps provided the most rewarding of the Support Group's work.

                  "It's a training exercise for us, and we see things here we can't see at home,"
                  Nutt says. "We've learned a lot."

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