"We're at war; America's at the mall"

"We’re at war, America’s at the mall." That’s how a lieutenant colonel here in Baghdad summed up his frustration last week. I had asked him, given the chance, which Iraq-related issue he would raise with President Bush. We were standing in the dust of a makeshift landing zone, on the edge of a fortified Baghdad neighborhood, waiting for a Blackhawk to airlift us somewhere.

Then that same officer framed his frustration into a question for his Commander-in-Chief. "What’s the answer to preventing multiple tours here for the same troops?"

The art of war has changed dramatically over time, but not some of the basic attitudes of armies. Deployed soldiers always have the same question. "When am I going home?" Back in the fourth-century B.C., when Alexander the Greek led his armies through what is now Iraq, chances are his men also wanted some sense of when their families could expect to see them again. So no real surprise there. But over here, soldiers here often ask a second question. "When am I coming BACK?"

It’s a fair question. I’ve often run into soldiers on their second, even third rotation in Iraq. A gunnery sergeant with a daughter who’s now five years old could have missed three of those years soldiering in Iraq. The White House insists U.S. forces are not stretched too thing, but the Pentagon keeps asking the same people to head to Iraq for another tour.

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