The Marine helicopters began landing just before noon in a cow pasture here in this heavily damaged farming town about nine miles south of Port-Au-Prince, kicking up strong winds and drawing crowds of the curious and hopeful. About 125 Marines eventually landed here and planned to stay about 24 hours to unload initial shipments of water and food. They expected to spend the night camped out in the pasture. The relief effort was the U.S. military's first significant mission outside Port-au-Prince, the devastated capital, where the needs remain daunting. For some of the Marines, the work in Haiti is deeply personal. Cpl. Clifford Sajous, 22, of Elmont, N.Y., grew up in Port-au-Prince, and some of his family, including his father, brother, a cousin and three young nephews, ages 10, 8 and 7, have been living in the city. None of them have been heard from. Sajous, who is doubling as a translator on the mission here, said he has not let thoughts of his missing family members interfere with his work. But for the young corporal, who lived in Haiti until he was 13, the images he has seen on television while shipboard on the way from Norfolk have been wrenching. 'I really wanted to cry,' he said, 'because that's where I grew up. A lot of those places I recognize, and seeing all these people dead and people running out of food and water, that hurts me.' 'Even here,' he added, 'we're going to hand out some water and food and not everyone is going to get some.' The Marines passed the food they brought to the United Nations, which sent it by truck to a nearby stadium to be distributed. Sajous and other company translators filtered into the crowd to explain where the aid was going. But the message wasn't getting out to everyone. 'Yes, they are going to give it to us,' said Son Son Maurice, 25, as he stood waiting. Asked if he was sure, he said 'Yes, I am sure.' The Marines did not leave the cow pasture on Tuesday, and what they witnessed of the damage in the area they saw from the sky as their helicopters flew in. The devastation here is immense, but harder to see quickly here than in the city of Port-au-Prince, where toppled buildings line the streets. Here in Leogane, buildings are scattered amid sugar cane fields and banana trees, but it is easier to count the structures still standing than those that have collapsed. People here believe about 5,000 people died in the town. If there was any symbolic significance to Marines landing here after past U.S. interventions in this troubled country, few here seemed to care. Some in the crowd even joked with the Marines who were standing guard with rifles slung over their shoulders. 'You know we are in a bad situation, so I am glad they came to help us,' said Charlius Saint Louis, 45, who lost a 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son in the earthquake, as well as a girlfriend who was pregnant with his child. On a drive to the town from Port-au-Prince, damage could be seen all along the route. Long fissures lined the two-lane paved road. One of the lanes was covered in many sections by boulders and soil from landslides. At a village called Mona Bateau about two miles north of Leogane, someone had dumped 24 bodies on the side of the road, most of them children, including a newborn infant and a toddler wearing a diaper and one white sandal. Her other foot was bare. Next to the bodies was a freshly dug grave about 5 by 12 feet across and 6 feet deep. Villagers said the bodies appeared to be from somewhere other than this area, with some saying they believed they might be from Carrefour, the neighborhood of Port-au-Prince that is closest to here. The villagers say that the United Nations came with a digger to make the grave, but that it was up to the people here to move the badly decomposed bodies into it. Covering their mouths and noses with lemon-soaked rags for the smell, they pulled the bodies onto a corrugated tin slab, then dragged the slab into the hole. The same thing happened last Sunday, the villagers said, only then it was 18 bodies and the villagers had to dig the hole themselves. 'We want to get on a radio show and tell the people that the people of Carrefour dumped the bodies here and that is not fair,' said Margaret Estima, 38. 'It's hard on us because I'm a mother too,' she said. 'We cried.' The Marines will be witnessing more of Haiti's sorrows as they continue to move out of the capital with heavy equipment to clear debris and take on other missions. Told about the dead children on the side of the road, Capt. Clark Carpenter, 34, of Princeton, Idaho, the unit's public affairs officer, took a long pause. 'It's a really horrible situation,' he said finally. 'I've been watching this through the eyes of the media, but as we get out and see it, the true scope will become apparent.' 