Sorry Christie, your husband won't be coming back soon.
As a matter of fact, with recruiting being what it is, he could be
assigned another hitch there.
And for what? I'd be one thing if we were winning, or even holding our
ground, but it's getting worse - more violent and dangerous by the day.
What's our strategy to win anyway? Use invasion troops for police work?
Not a good idea as they don't know the language or the local customs,
and the urban fighting gets them killed at an ever increasing rate.
---
THE NATION
In a Military Stronghold, a War Hawk Circles Back
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer
June 19, 2005
JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — With its sprawling military bases and huge
population of military retirees, eastern North Carolina has believed in
the Iraq war, and sacrificed for it, like few other regions.
But as summer heat has settled over the piney lowlands in recent days, a
debate has unexpectedly come to life about a U.S. mission that is two
years old and counting.
New doubts and divisions have come into view.
It started this month, when Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones, an original
supporter of the war, said he had lost confidence in the effort and
would sponsor legislation calling on the administration to more clearly
define how, and when, it intended to bring the war to a close.
Coming from the staunch conservative who renamed French fries "freedom
fries" on congressional menus, the announcement shocked many.
Back home, his change of heart brought denunciations and stirred trouble
for Jones within his local Republican Party.
But it also became clear that others in North Carolina's 3rd
Congressional District were uneasy about the war, for one reason or another.
Service members' families, watching violence surge, fear it will drag on
indefinitely. Others worry it is damaging the military — or that it has
been prosecuted foolishly.
Jones "was right to go after the administration," said retired Marine
Col. Jim Van Riper, a veteran of Vietnam and Desert Storm who supported
the U.S. presence in Iraq but faulted the war plan. "Rumsfeld and the
neo-cons have fouled it up from the beginning."
The debate is occurring in a place where support for the military is
apparent to the most casual visitor. The highways around Jacksonville,
near the entrance to the Marines' huge Camp Lejeune, are lined with car
dealerships, military surplus stores, barber shops and other businesses
festooned with American flags. Signs urge Americans: "Honk for the
Troops" and "Pray for Our Heroes."
As tobacco farming has declined in recent decades, the military has
become more important as a part of the local economy. About 60,000
retirees live in the 3rd District, which in addition to Camp Lejeune is
home to the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, Seymour Johnson
Air Force Base, and New River Marine Corps Air Station.
But these days, residents' anxieties, as well as their pride, are near
the surface.
In the steamy parking lot of Jacksonville's Wal-Mart, Christy May, the
wife of a Marine serving in Iraq, loads plastic summertime toys for her
kids into the trunk of her car. She said she thought it would be a
mistake to set a fixed time for withdrawal.
"History shows that it wouldn't make sense for us to walk away all of a
sudden," said May, 42, of Jacksonville.
But she also acknowledges that she and her husband, a supply and
logistics specialist, are split over whether the United States should be
there at all. May is particularly anxious on this day, because her
husband told her that insurgents had blown up his unit's communications
hardware, forcing the Marines to travel by ground convoy rather than in
aircraft. "I'm really worried about him today," she said.
Nearby, Kerri Hassell of Jacksonville, a 32-year-old single mother of
three, said she was worried about the effect the war had on a number of
close friends who were Marines, including one who was godfather to her
children. She said she knew three young Marines who were about to leave
the service. All have doubts about continuing the war, she said.
"Every one wants it to end," said Hassell, a community college student
with a hairdressing business. "They don't know why they're over there."
In her view, "the government uses the word 'terror' and it just sends us
all into a frenzy."
At the same time, the many in the area who support a continued U.S.
effort have been outspoken, and the debate has seeped into local levels
of government.
Joe McLaughlin, a former Army Ranger who sits on the Onslow County Board
of Commissioners, has proposed having the county board officially
declare its opposition to a fixed withdrawal date. He is pressing to
have the board vote on the issue at a meeting Monday.
"The worst thing we can do is to announce that we're going to pull out
by a certain date," said McLaughlin.
Tuesday, McLaughlin called for Jones to resign his post over his
proposal; later in the week, he reconsidered and withdrew that request.
McLaughlin's stance split the county commissioners. The board's
chairman, Lionell Midgett, argued that picking a fight with Jones could
backfire when the area needed federal money for dredging a wetland or
help in fighting a proposal to cut back military facilities.
Martin Aragona Sr., the county Republican chairman, said he had been
polling members of a key party committee to decide how to respond to
Jones' proposal. He said all those he'd reached wanted to take a
position strongly opposing Jones. "This is not the time to be
second-guessing the commander in chief," Aragona said.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Hugh R. Overholt, who practices law in nearby New
Bern, describes himself as a strong supporter of Jones who "has some
concerns" about setting a fixed date for withdrawing from Iraq.
But Overholt, a former judge advocate general of the Army, said he was
concerned about what the fight had been doing to the military, both the
reserves and the active-duty force.
"I'm very concerned about our force," he said. The administration should
do what's required and "get it over as soon as possible."
The signs of anxiety in North Carolina's military heartland come at a
time when national polls suggest that more Americans are turning against
the war as the insurgency flares and costs to taxpayers show little sign
of abating.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Congress that has been reluctant to challenge the
administration on the war is suddenly pressing for answers. Jones was
joined last week by a bipartisan group in favor of a proposal that would
require the White House to submit a plan for withdrawal by the end of
the year and to begin troop reductions by October 2006.
In some ways, Jones' own history shows what makes the issue so tough for
people in his district.
The son of a 14-term House member, Jones has built his congressional
career in large part on advocacy for the military. He voted to authorize
the war, displays pictures of the dead outside his Capitol Hill office,
and has written condolence letters to the families of hundreds of
service members. The anguish of the families was a major reason he
turned against the war.
"After 2 1/2 years, it's right to take a fresh look," he told reporters
Thursday. "We have a right to ask, 'What are the goals?' "
The doubts are part of the discussion in other parts of Jones' district,
including the resorts on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, an area that
includes many wealthy areas and newcomers from the North. Sometimes,
arguments here head in a different direction.
Jack Ubert, a retiree from Amityville, N.Y., who owns a home on the
beach in well-off Emerald Island, N.C., admires Jones for "taking a
pretty tough stance." Yet he fears that in the end the United States
will "probably not win anything" from the Iraq fight — "like in Vietnam."
"Saddam deserves whatever he gets," said Ubert, but added: "I was never
sure why we had to go in there and dictate to them. It's just like with
nuclear weapons: We think we're the only ones who should have them. We
want to make all the rules."
The debate is intensifying in North Carolina, as it is in other parts of
the country.
"Members are hearing more from people who are patriotic and really want
to see this thing turn out right, but are worried about how long it's
going to go on," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). "They don't see that
light at the end of the tunnel."
Some congressional strategists said that while they still didn't expect
large numbers of Republicans to break with the president over the war,
there was a palpable nervousness as members looked to next year's
midterm elections and worried that opinion might be shifting.
Lawmakers want the administration to lay out specific goals they can
point to as a way to reassure uneasy constituents, said one Republican
strategist.
"You're hearing from some members, 'We don't know what these [upcoming]
milestones and markers are,' " said David Winston, a GOP pollster who
advised the congressional Republican leader. What they are seeking is
"not so much an exit strategy, but the sequence of things that are going
to move us closer to safety and security."
While the public's deepening pessimism is beyond dispute, it is not
clear whether the country has reached a turning point, as it did with
the Vietnam War in 1968.
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press, said polls were showing that people were paying close attention
to developments in Iraq, and that the number of people who preferred
withdrawal was steadily rising.
"What I see in Iraq is a steady drip, drip, drip of eroding support for
the war as the casualties mount and the instability continues," Kohut said.
Yet he noted that Pew research showed that 52% said the troops should
stay, and he said the polls could still move in a more favorable
direction. Other polls are more pessimistic.
"I don't think opinion is entrenched," Kohut said. "There is still a
public capacity to rethink Iraq."
In North Carolina, public opinion is anything but entrenched. Andrew
deGrandpré, city editor of the Daily News of Jacksonville, said that
although the city's bonds with the military made it distinctive, the
sentiments resembled the uneasy national conversation.
"I think deep down this place is a lot like any other in America, and
people have been debating the war and the human cost that's being paid,"
DeGrandpré said. "Nobody wants to back out … but these questions are out
there."
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