For 'Surge' Troops, Pride Mingles With Doubt

After a conversation with one business owner, Orosz asked an Iraqi soldier standing next to him whether he had any questions for the man. The soldier looked down; he hadn't been paying attention.

Orosz and his men got back in their vehicle and drove off. Four Iraqi soldiers rode in the Humvee in front. As they left the market, the Iraqi soldier in the gunner's seat smiled, waved and blew kisses to passersby, looking more as if he was on parade than patrol.

Wilhite said he leaves Iraq feeling enormously proud. But he worries that upcoming provincial elections could incite violence if Sunnis don't feel they have made adequate political inroads.

He said he was not the arbiter of the success of the "surge" strategy. "You'd have to ask the Iraqi people," he said. "You have to ask the Iraqi government that."

Some of his men were more pointed.

"It's worth it, and it's not worth it," said Taylor, the specialist from West Virginia. "I have a wife and a kid. I go home, and my daughter is 2. She probably doesn't remember who I am."

Leisz, who survived the suicide bombing, nodded.

"It's not worth me not being there with my wife, or the friends we've lost over here," he said. "Now that the strength is going to go down, this could all be for naught."