U.S. Troops Praise Iraq Withdrawal: 'I Don't Think We Really Had a Whole Lot of Direction.'

Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress at 9:28 AM on February 28, 2009.

Today, at Camp Lejuene, N.C., President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2010.

After Obama’s speech, the Associated Press interviewed several soldiers at the Marine base. While conservatives have long insisted that service members do not want to withdraw from Iraq, the troops interviewed heaped praise on Obama’s military agenda and the withdrawal timetable:

Petty Officer Ryan Junkin: All around pretty good feeling. It’s good that he gave some direction. … Because I don’t think we really had a whole lot of direction with what’s going on. It’s kind of defined now.

Sgt. Aldwin Del Rosario: My biggest takeaway is that he had dates, and he plans to meet those goals and those dates.

Lance Cpl. Codell Campbell: Iraq got all our full attention for the past years. A lot of fellow Marines have died trying to make the country better. … Afghanistan is where the real fight is.

Watch it:

"I thought the war would go on and on," said Pvt. John R. Brown, who watched the president’s speech on Armed Forces Network in Iraq. "I thought it would never end."

Tagged as: war, iraq, troops, u.s. troops

Satyam Khanna is a research associate for the Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.