Bad Gods: Haiti is a ground-level memoir of duty under pressure. In January 2010, David Burnell landed in Port-au-Prince as Chief of Security for the Utah Hospital Task Force—120 doctors, nurses, and volunteers dropped into chaos. With a five-man security element and the help of the 82nd Airborne, he built perimeters out of trucks, moved clinics through hostile streets, and called hard exits when daylight died.
This is the work as it really happens: food drops that tilt toward riot, a bus “explosion” that became a drill, camp sickness that knocked healers off their feet, and the quiet routine of rules that save lives—never alone, hide real cash, break contact early, at dusk security calls it. Threaded through it all is the search for a kidnapped boy, Gardy Mardy, pushed into Haiti’s hills and alleys where law had broken.
Burnell keeps the language simple and the tone honest. There’s some dry humor (yes, a “Fixer” and a few Jack-Bauer-for-TV moments), but the center stays steady: protect people, get them home, and live with the choices. Faith shows up in a truck-bed sacrament and field blessings—not a sermon, just the spine he leaned on.
If you want the polished press release, this isn’t it. If you want a protector’s notebook read aloud by the man who carried it, you’re in the right place.
Written & narrated by: David BurnellGenre: Nonfiction • Memoir • Disaster/Field Operations
Highlights
* Chief of Security in Haiti, 2010
* Working with the 82nd Airborne
* Food drop nearly overrun
* “We go up, you go down”
* Rules that actually keep you alive
* Camp sick call and IV lines
* The hunt for an abducted child
* Faith without fanfare
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