JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina -- Battle-weary U.S. troops and their families braced for a wrenching round of new deployments to Afghanistan announced Tuesday by the president, but many said they support the surge as long as it helps to end the eight-year-old conflict.
As President Barack Obama outlined his plan to send 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan -- while pledging to start bringing them home in 2011 -- soldiers, Marines and their families interviewed by The Associated Press felt a tangle of fresh concerns and renewed hopes.
"All I ask that man to do, if he is going to send them over there, is not send them over in vain," said 57-year-old Bill Thomas of Jacksonville, North Carolina, who watched Obama's televised speech in his living room, where photos of his three sons in uniform hang over the TV.
One of his sons, 23-year-old Cpl. Michael Thomas, is a Marine based at neighboring Camp Lejeune. He'll deploy next year to Afghanistan. Another son is in the Navy, and a third recently left the Marines after serving in Iraq.
An ex-Marine himself, Thomas said he supports Obama's surge strategy. But he shook his head when the president announced a 2011 transition date to begin pulling out troops.
"If I were the enemy, I would hang back until 2011," Thomas said. "We have to make sure that we are going go stay until the job is done. It ain't going to be as easy as he thinks it is." - FOX News Story
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