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U.S. Troops Too Busy for Vote Returns
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"The Republicans are going to get me killed," he said wryly. "But they're going to pay me well until they do."
If units currently in Iraq are rushed to Afghanistan, he wondered, would that undermine the security gains in Dora, which just over a year ago was decimated by bombs, clashes and sectarian violence?
"Chase them out of here with the 'surge,' go surge there," he said. "Like a Ping-Pong match."
West and his men finished patrolling at 1 a.m. Polling stations on the East Coast were still open. The wide-screen television in their small dining room was set to CNN, which was reporting results from exit polls that suggested Obama would prevail.
By 2 a.m., only a couple of soldiers sat in front of the TV.
Among them was Staff Sgt. Jeremy Ziegler, 25, of Pontiac, Ill., who was supervising the soldiers on duty at the outpost's guard towers. He deployed to Afghanistan during the invasion, then served in Iraq in 2003, and was sent back to Afghanistan twice more. He has spent nearly as much of his 20s in war zones as he has at home.
"I'm a resident," he joked.
He was leery of Obama "being a Muslim," Ziegler said, repeating a discredited rumor. Obama is a Christian.
"McCain is a war hero," he said while smoking a cigarette outside, speaking above the rumble of the outpost's large generator. He liked the Republican running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, too. "They have kids in uniform. They experience what my spouse, my children and my mother are going through."
As much as he dislikes being deployed, he said, the prospect of endless deployments is preferable to the prospect of a lost war.
"If we were to pack up and leave tomorrow, this country would go back to what it was," he said. "Four thousand-some KIA" -- killed in action. "That would be 4,000-some KIA in vain. Everyone who has worked hand in hand with Americans would end up dead."
By the time the polls in California closed and the networks called the race for Obama, it was 7 a.m. in Baghdad, and a new patrol was getting ready to head out.
Soldiers wearing sweat-stained uniforms streamed into the dining hall, piled scrambled eggs and biscuits onto cardboard trays and drank watery, lukewarm coffee.
A group assembled in front of the television broke the news to the soldiers who walked through the door.
"We're all going home!" one exclaimed in jest. "What time does the plane leave?"
Another had a question for his interpreter. "What does it take to become an Iraqi citizen?"
