Despite Troop Drawdown, Locals Still Getting Deployed

It might be at least another decade before Iraq's military can ably defend the country.

Still the U.S. military continues its drawdown as the August 31 deadline for the cessation of all combat operations nears. A residual force of about 50,000 will then remain in country. Their official mission will be to ensure stability and to advise and assist Iraqi security forces.

It's like MAACV in reverse. In the years before 1965 (what some consider the Vietnam War's official start date), teams of U.S. advisors deployed to train the South Vietnamese military and work with the government. Those "advisors" and "assistance" troops faced combat just as deadly and civil unrest just as explosive as in later years. They died the same in 1959 as they did in 1973.

Sergeant Major Caterina Veronesi, a Fairfield County resident who is very involved in Wilton's Female Soldier/Forgotten Hero, heads to Iraq next month. It's her second deployment.

She will face a situation just as tenuous as if she had been deployed six months ago.  The Sergeant Major will return to a country fraught with ethnic tension. For the most part Iraq still lacks basic services, such as steady electricity. Corruption remains rampant. And Iran has made significant inroads to Iraq's Shia community, which deepens fissures in a fragile nation.

And according to several news reports, commanders on the ground in both countries say they need more time to get the respective security forces into shape.

Nevertheless, Americans are understandably anxious for troops to come home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. According to The Wall Street Journal, 68% of Americans are less confident the war will successfully end. Just 44% approve of the president's job on Afghanistan; down from a majority who approved in March.

And yet young men and women continue to enlist, and the possibility they will be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan remains.

"I feel bad about this war," said Don Hazzard, the commander of Wilton's American Legion Post 86. "But how do we just pull out? There are boys here in Wilton who want to go defend our country. Our military wants to be doing this."

The public owes it to the military to keep them in their thoughts – because although combat operations might officially cease, history tells us the casualties will not.