Bring All Our Boys Home

In October, President Barack Obama informed Americans that the nine-year Operation Iraqi Freedom would cease action by the end of 2011 and all U.S forces would be brought home. With the start of 2012, thousands of troops will be welcomed home with open arms from their families and friends and begin the journey to moving on from the experience of the past ten years.

But unlike the lucky ones, some troops in the Middle East will not get the opportunity to come home and begin reliving their lives. Since President Obama’s announcement, thousands of troops have still been deployed to Afghanistan, and will continue to, being sent away from their families and their homes with uncertainty of when they will all return.

There is no exact number of how many troops will be sent to Afghanistan but according to the Los Angeles Times, over 100,000 troops are already serving the war on terror. And the toll that this war has taken on American life? According to the Washington Post, Operation Enduring Freedom has killed 1,829 soldiers since 2001.

For the families of those troops still being sent overseas, the war on terror is still very much alive. And they are not delighted about it one bit.

The Hintons are one of those military families for which the war still makes up their life. William enlisted into the Marines right after high school in September 2008 as an infantry rifleman. He was just deployed on his second tour to Afghanistan in October 2011; leaving his wife and their toddler son, Carter, to move from the base in Southern, California back up to her mothers house in a small town in Northern, California to have family support during the deployment.

According to his wife, Connie, Hinton says, “we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan because the problems that the country is dealing with will always be a reoccurring issue. [I] was told that [we] are there to encourage people in the villages to be stronger and defend themselves without depending on the U.S. to always solve their problems.”

Even with some disagreement over the war, there is hope for those troops still being deployed and even a hint at an end to the United States’ presence in Afghanistan.

According to Robert Burns, AP National Security Writer for The San Francisco Examiner, “General James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview that the number of Marines in Helmand province will drop “markedly” in 2012.” According to firstpost.com, the United States is pulling out 33,000 troops at the most by the end of 2012. “That’s one-third of 101,000 American troops who were in Afghanistan in June, the peak of US military presence in the war, according to figures provided by the Pentagon.”

Until that happens, all Connie and Carter can do is wait for notice that their lives can return to normal.

“Now that my husband has been gone for 2 weeks into his second deployment there’s still so many unanswered questions until he returns home. We don’t know if the conditions of Afghanistan are better or worse. As for our own family all we can do is sit and wait until June 2012.”

With hope and faith, William Hinton along with thousands of other brave shoulders will come home in time for the holidays this time next year. Because General Amos is right, “We can’t stay in Afghanistan forever.”