Today marks the end of 11 long and stressful months for these families. Their soldiers are finally coming home from Iraq. They've been expecting them ever since major combat was declared over in May, but the ongoing occupation of Iraq delayed their return.
It's not just families who are waiting the local Vietnam veterans will be here to welcome home every plane.
BUTCH HEMMINGWAY, HINESVILLE VIETNAM VETERANS ASSOCIATION: I'll be here at six o'clock Sunday morning and we're going to be here at 8:30 that night, and we're going to be here Monday morning at six o'clock and then we'll be here Tuesday, Wednesday and we'll be here Thursday morning at 01:30 in the morning.
WOMAN IN CROWD: That's him see him. I see him. See him?
These soldiers are from the Third Infantry Division, they're local and national heroes known as the 3rdID, they were amongst the first to cross over into Iraq and led the victorious march into Baghdad. 44 soldiers from this division were killed in Iraq.
While today is a special day, here at Fort Stewart in the state of Georgia, love of country and love of the military runs strong every day. This is the heartland of American patriotism. More than 16,000 people from this town were sent to fight in Iraq. According to the editor of the local paper, it was a war the whole town was right behind.
PAT DONAHUE, EDITOR, COASTAL COURIER: But as far as whether or not the war needed to happen and whether or not this was justified, there weren't a whole lot of debate about it, not very much at all. It was - I don't want to say it's unanimous, but it was an overwhelming majority of folks who figured let's get this done and let's get it done right this time.
But dissent did emerge here. When the return-home date of the troops kept getting pushed back time and time again, a large group of soldiers' wives banded together and did the unthinkable - they publicly spoke out about the campaign in Iraq and demanded the troops, their husbands, be brought home.
In July they took their story to the local TV station.
WTOC SAVANNAH, WOMAN 1: Granted they are defending America, you know, but they can just send them over there and fight and fight and fight, and they're human. They feel they're emotionally drained.
REPORTER: And so are they. While many endure the hardships of being a single parent, many of them are enduring the horror stories they're being told.
WOMAN 2: He actually told me he has nothing else to give. He just really wants to come home with his family because the treatment and the things that he's had to endure over there, is ridiculous.
WOMAN 3: Our morale is not high or even low our morale is nonexistent.
Such dissent from within the military community, particularly during the course of a war, was unprecedented. The wives held meetings, wrote letters and spoke to local and national media. It was a shock to the town.
PAT DONAHUE: So this level of outspokenness was pretty new, especially around here.
Kimberly Hernandez was one of the wives who spoke out. Her husband Carlos is a sergeant in the Third Infantry Division.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Was it in Baghdad or in Fallujah where it was the day you were suppose to pack to come home that they told you, you weren't?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: Baghdad.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: The very day that they were packing to come home, they said, "You're gonna stay." Sent them to Fallujah.
Carlos Hernandez has just returned home after nearly 11 months in Iraq and Kuwait. Kimberly was just one of hundreds of women at Fort Stewart agitating for her husband's return.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: The whole post, you know, was very gung-ho and very involved and very ready to do anything they needed to do to get their soldier home.
The top military brass reacted. A general from another base was sent to talk to the wives. It was reported that at one closed-door meeting with 800 furious wives, a colonel had to be escorted from the room. The biggest reprimand, though, came from the wife of the division's commanding general. Anita Blount is one of the most influential women on base. She wrote a letter to the local military paper, saying the wives' campaign could encourage more guerilla attacks against US troops.
When the Iraqis see media coverage of disgruntled Americans publicly campaigning for the return of our soldiers from Iraq, they are encouraged and believe their strategy is working.
Kimberly Hernandez started getting phone calls.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: A lot of the calls that I was getting from people who were perceiving it in a negative way, felt that if we were over here saying, you know, we want our soldiers to come home, that the people in the Middle East would think that we're trying to get them all home, that we don't want them there and they might try harder to target them, to make them all leave as before in the first Gulf War when they left.
REPORTER: So who was saying this kind of thing?
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Different people and I would get phone calls, you know, this is how it's being perceived, this is how you want to be perceived.
REPORTER: So what kind of people were calling you?
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: I really wouldn't want to give names or anything like that. But it was...impressionable.
REPORTER: But you were receiving phone calls?
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Yeah.
Kimberly took this on board and cancelled a rally she'd been planning. She was also worried she was being seen as anti-war, which she's not. When news of the wives' campaign reached the troops in Iraq, they were surprised but supportive.
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: We was happy, because speaking out is something that we can't do. There is no excuse for it. We cannot, I mean, express our feelings in the military. You just can't. And most of the time when we did talk to the wives, you couldn't help it, but your feelings were expressed, you know, on the situation. So, basically the wives spoke out for the soldiers.
For at least some of the troops, this was a time of low morale. It was when the expectation of a short, sharp victory as welcomed liberators gave way to the reality of an ongoing, dangerous occupation.
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: And the thought of OK, I made it through the most heaviest battle and now they're going to make me stay longer and I thought I made it through the war and I might get killed, you know, from some little something, not war, just a terrorist attack and not make it home.
Morale may have been bad, but no one was prepared for the news America woke up to one morning in July. A group of 3rdID soldiers effectively broke ranks on prime-time television and attacked those responsible for the war.
REPORTER: What was the reaction amongst the other soldiers when you saw that they had actually given these interviews?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: We was all... Wow. Yeah.
REPORTER: Wow in a positive or a negative sense?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: No in a positive sense.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Kind of unbelievable, don't you think?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: It's like, whooh.
Back at Fort Stewart, the locals were horrified. For Butch Hemmingway, who's lived in the town ever since his tour of Vietnam, it was simply unforgivable.
BUTCH HEMMINGWAY, HINESVILLE VIETNAM VETERANS ASSOCIATION: I don't think they should have done it, that's a personal opinion. I think they broke that code. My personal opinion is they ruined their careers, but who knows. We'll see when they get back.
REPORTER: What's this code? Tell me about the code.
BUTCH HEMMINGWAY: You should never speak out against your leaders if you disagree with what they're doing. I mean you just don't do that. You're going to ruin your career if you do.
The tension in Fort Stewart has only been resolved by the return home of the soldiers.
PAT DONAHUE: It had better be about a year or so before this community is asked to go back over there. I mean it's been pretty much put through the ringer since March. So, you know, if the Pentagon decides that we need to send the Third Infantry back over, it better wait, it better wait a good year and a half to make that happen.
Here at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the troops that are replacing the Third ID in Iraq are training.
These soldiers are from the 82nd Airborne Division. They're leaving for Iraq in less than a week. Today they're touching up on their urban warfare skills.
SERGEANT WHITE, 82nd AIRBORNER DIVISION: We do things the textbook way initially to show you exactly how it's done but this is not textbook, OK. Iraq is not going to be textbook.
Sergeant White and around half his squad have only recently returned from the war in Afghanistan. Others, like Private Masseth, are just out of high school. They're preparing to enter what's now being called an insurgent guerrilla war.
SERGEANT WHITE: Each room is its own little battleground, alright? Collapse your sector put in security, everything will be fucking fine, alright? Screw around, stop paying attention, boom, lose your situational awareness, you're gonna get shot, OK, or worse than that, you'll live and one of your buddies' gonna get shot.
Fort Bragg is one of the biggest military bases in America and has played a key role in George Bush's war on terror.
REPORTER: That one's off to Iraq, is it?
SERGEANT WHITE: Yep. Any of the C-17s like that that are leaving here are going to Iraq.
Like Fort Stewart, Fort Bragg and the surrounding town is steeped in military history and culture. It's been a major military town since before the Second World War.
But just a few miles from where the troops are training, voices are being raised against the deployment, again from within the military. It's a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Fayetteville, the home of Fort Bragg. The local peace group is holding their weekly anti-war vigil.
Lorraine Butner used to be in the military. She says the small numbers at the vigil do not reflect a lack of support.
REPORTER: Do you think that there are many military families who feel the same way in this town?
LORRAINE BUTNER: Yes, there are. There are very many others. But a lot of people are afraid to come out and say anything. I mean, it can hurt them it can hurt their career, it can - what the wife does can hurt the husband's career, or vice versa. What they do and what they say has its effects.
There's a strong belief in military circles that the behaviour of a spouse can directly affect a soldier's career. Conventional military wisdom says this woman is taking a risk even standing here.
PAM NOLAN: I read all that was on your website because I was looking for different things, different activities that were going on.
Nevertheless there are some wives of serving members of the military who are willing to speak publicly. Pam Nolan's husband is a soldier currently deployed in Iraq. At the last election, Pam was a vocal supporter of George W. Bush, even joining the National Republican Women's Association. That's all changed now.
PAM NOLAN: Now I completely distrust President Bush and I was one of - my kids can tell you, I was a firm, firm supporter, strong supporter of President Bush - he was like a hero to me.
LITTLE BOY: How many died in Iraq? Like 600 or something.
LITTLE GIRL: Everything was like George Bush, you screamed, in Texas, you screamed.
PAM NOLAN:I was like "Yeah, George Bush, yeah."
Back in January, Pam was also a supporter of plans to invade Iraq.
PAM NOLAN: You know, I was buying into it. Before the war most Americans, a majority of Americans were buying into, we were concerned about weapons of mass destruction, we were concerned about, you know, Saddam supporting terrorism, the al-Qa'ida connection and all that. American people were buying into it.
REPORTER: So you thought it was a good idea to go to war?
PAM NOLAN: Right. You know, it's better, you know, to do something before, you know, we get, you know, attacked. That's what what we were led to believe that if we didn't do something immediately we were gonna be wiped out.
Pam no longer believes in the reasons given by the Administration for going to war. She now suspects it was all about oil. This has led her to change her view about her husband's involvement in the war.
PAM NOLAN: When he joined the army, you know, he and I both believed he would never be sent into combat unless it was for the purpose of defending our country... and that's not - I don't see that now.
Pam now thinks the US should hand authority over to the United Nations, she says her views are shared by many other spouses at Fort Bragg.
PAM NOLAN: I think it's very widespread but I think that the wives are afraid or they feel intimidated about saying anything, and I did too.
But she says there is a need to speak out.
PAM NOLAN: Our troops need our support, our troops need us maybe also to support them in a way that other Americans think is unpatriotic but they need us to support us, say bring our troops home now, let's bring our troops home, let's get our guys out of there. I think that's supporting them a lot more because we're saying, you know, we don't want one more soldier killed, not one more US soldier killed, you know, for something that we don't believe is right.
More and more military people are now speaking out. Last month, a national Bring Them Home Now campaign was launched in Fayetteville, Fort Bragg.
ERIN BIRD: My name is Erin Bird, and I'm an army brat. My father is retired in the army, after 20 years, my sister is a first lieutenant in the army in Germany right now - she's just gotten orders to go to Kuwait and then I have uncles in the air force and uncles in the military so like so many people I have a lot of military in my family and I love the military and I thank the military for everything it's done for me. And as we send our soldiers off to risk their lives, more of them, I want to ask America to reflect on the last two years of deceit and half-truths. It seems that the coalition of the willing was more willing to lie to the American people and the people of the world.
Nearly everyone in this room is connected to the military in some way. The campaign is inspired in part by President Bush's "bring 'em on" challenge when asked about attacks on US forces in Iraq.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH: There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on.
NANCY LESSIN, MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT: Today, we want to talk about the three words of false bravado uttered by President Bush from a safe and secure location surrounded by armed guards that taunted those shooting at our loved ones. Those three words galvanised Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other veterans organisations to initiate the campaign we are launching today. George Bush said "bring 'em on", we say "Bring them home now."
Unlike the wives of Fort Stewart, they don't just want their troops home, they want all troops home - this is a decidedly anti-war movement.
SUSAN SCHUMAN, MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT: It's very difficult for me to speak these three words. My only child - without losing it - anyway, I'm going to say it - my only child, Justin, was deployed out of Fort Bragg on March 29, 2003, and he's now stationed in northern Iraq in Samara in the heart of the Sunni triangle. He and the rest of his National Guard Unit received a direct mortar attack. His office received a direct mortar attack a couple of weeks ago. He and the rest of his National Guard Unit are under constant daily ambushes, under constant danger. Two months ago, the President said, essentially, the war is over, but the ground truth, as our troops who are there in Iraq now say, is a constant guerilla war, daily chaos, a lack of planning, lack of basic supplies and equipment, lack of personnel, living conditions that grind our troops to exhaustion. How many of Bush's cabinet members have loved ones in the military in Iraq?
Fernando Suarez De Solar has travelled all the way from California to be here. He's also here to speak about his son.
FERNANDO SUAREZ DE SOLAR: I lost my son in this illegal war. My grandson lost his father in this Bush war. And I ask you, Mr President, how many kids do you need for over this illegal war? And I ask the American people how many kids you need for your gasoline in your car? How many kids do you need for finish this terrific situation? I lose my son, but there's a lot of sons in Iraq right now. And I want and my wife want everyone come back, come back home right now! Thank you.
Organisers say they have 1,000 signed-up members around the country with thousands more interested. Veteran Stan Goff is one of the driving forces behind the campaign. He says that once it became public, they were flooded with support.
STAN GOFF, BRING THEM HOME NOW, CAMPAIGNER: Like 2,000 emails in 24 hours. Overwhelmingly, I would say 70%, 80% of these emails are very, very supportive and a lot of them are from people in military families who really want to be connected to some sort of an organisation because they have some real concerns.
Stan Goff is retired from a long career in the military. He's served in eight conflict areas including Vietnam, Grenada, Guatemala, Somalia, Haiti and Colombia. He's worked extensively in special operations and even taught at the prestigious military academy West Point. He thinks the operation in Iraq is unravelling.
STAN GOFF: We've got 150,000 roughly between us and the Brits and a handful of other people, 150,000 troops that are supposed to be in there in a geographic area the size of California with 23 million people who don't want to be occupied and they think that they can successfully conduct an occupation. That's absurd.
The Bring Them Home Now campaign is operating a busy website. They've been watching closely what happened to the wives' campaign at Fort Stewart, and are using that as a cautionary tale.
STAN GOFF: It sounds to me like it's effectively dampened their public dissent. One of the things that we're doing through the Bring Them Home campaign and the website is people can send us their grievances, send us their concerns, send us their complaints and we don't have to put their name on there, but we're going to make sure that that message gets heard.
SERGEANT WHITE: OK, check it out. Look. What we're going to talk about here, we're going to talk about some Iraqi and Arab culture and things and we're also going to give you a real brief history on Iraq. Now...
In under a week, Sergeant White from the 82nd Airborne Division will lead his men to Iraq. Today they're getting a crash course in everything from who Mohammed was...
SERGEANT WHITE: Now everybody knows who Mohammed is, right, he's the guy who founded Islam.
...to the attitude of the Shi'ite majority in Iraq.
SERGEANT WHITE: But don't think just because there's no trouble in Shi'ite neighbourhoods that they're going to pat you on the back and give you a coke and say "Hey, good job America", alright, they don't like you any more than anybody else does because you're a non believer you're an infidel, OK, and that's just the way that it is. And you can get that in your mind - doesn't matter if you're black, you're white, Hispanic, Thai or whatever, that they don't like you because you're not a Muslim. And even if you were a Muslim, they wouldn't like you because you're American, so you're screwed no matter what, OK. Just remember that.
For the troops on the front line of this war, there's no longer any talk of the US being joyfully greeted as liberators. Everyone acknowledges the stark reality of what this has become - an unwelcome occupation.
SERGEANT WHITE: But you need to keep in mind these people's mindset. They're paranoid, OK. They don't trust the West, alright. They are - well, they may not be the most devout - some of them may not be the most devout Muslims in the world, they're still Muslims and Muslims have a general aversion to non-Muslims being in their countries. OK, because they have a long memory, it goes all the way back to the Crusades. OK. The only reason they can think of for us to be there, we must want to get rid of fucking...Islam, we must want all their oil - that's what they're thinking, OK. That's not true, it's not what we're there for, but that's their mindset.
Here at Fort Bragg, there's little sympathy for the military families who want the troops brought home. In these dangerous times, they argue, solidarity is needed.
SERGEANT WHITE: These people are, they're aiding the terrorists. They read that and it just reinforces the perception that Americans cut and run their casualties and when things get tough, we take off. All they're doing is they're propagating more attacks on soldiers by doing that, because these people are thinking "Hmm, if I kill one more soldier, it all adds up, sooner or later the Americans are going to leave," and we're not gonna leave Iraq.
It's clear, though, that even the military's top brass is reading the warning signs coming from disgruntled family members. Major General Charles Scwannack is in charge of the 82nd Airborne Division, some of whom were sent first to Afghanistan and now Iraq.
MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES SCWANNACK, 82nd AIRBORNE DIVISION: But the tough part is when you go back to the well time after again to go ahead and deploy our troopers, it's the family members, the kids and the spouses that go ahead and take a huge burden on back here and that's where it starts getting a little bit tough and that's where I have a concern, that they go back to the well too much with deployment after deployment after deployment after deployment and that will be manifested in the fact that I don't think we'll get the quality people re-enlisting to stay in the army, because of that, because of the workload that we have.
That workload is not diminishing. Unless the situation in Iraq changes, fresh American troops will be needed for months, if not years. 'Bring Them Home Now' campaigner Stan Goff is now facing this on a more personal level. To Stan's horror, his son recently joined the military, and has just been deployed to Iraq.
REPORTER: What did you think when he was called up for Iraq?
STAN GOFF: Oh, you know, we were beside ourselves. I have to accommodate that I believe the Iraqis have every right to resist an occupation of their own country and at the same time, I have to hope that my son gets back OK. You know, that's a tough thing to sort of hold on to both those beliefs at the same time, you know. Like, if a foreign power came in and invaded us here, we would fight them.
What happens with this movement of spouses and family members will no doubt depend on the course of the war. While towns like Fort Bragg and Fort Stewart are incredibly patriotic, every death of a US soldier is felt more acutely here than anywhere else.
PAM NOLAN: I believe that it will get bigger if this situation continues as it is because every day another soldier killed, another two soldiers killed and yet they know how the situation, how it is for their spouses over there, their sons, their brothers. There's going to be a lot more family members speaking up, more spouses too, I believe so.
REPORTER: Bronwyn Adcock
It's not just families who are waiting the local Vietnam veterans will be here to welcome home every plane.
BUTCH HEMMINGWAY, HINESVILLE VIETNAM VETERANS ASSOCIATION: I'll be here at six o'clock Sunday morning and we're going to be here at 8:30 that night, and we're going to be here Monday morning at six o'clock and then we'll be here Tuesday, Wednesday and we'll be here Thursday morning at 01:30 in the morning.
WOMAN IN CROWD: That's him see him. I see him. See him?
These soldiers are from the Third Infantry Division, they're local and national heroes known as the 3rdID, they were amongst the first to cross over into Iraq and led the victorious march into Baghdad. 44 soldiers from this division were killed in Iraq.
While today is a special day, here at Fort Stewart in the state of Georgia, love of country and love of the military runs strong every day. This is the heartland of American patriotism. More than 16,000 people from this town were sent to fight in Iraq. According to the editor of the local paper, it was a war the whole town was right behind.
PAT DONAHUE, EDITOR, COASTAL COURIER: But as far as whether or not the war needed to happen and whether or not this was justified, there weren't a whole lot of debate about it, not very much at all. It was - I don't want to say it's unanimous, but it was an overwhelming majority of folks who figured let's get this done and let's get it done right this time.
But dissent did emerge here. When the return-home date of the troops kept getting pushed back time and time again, a large group of soldiers' wives banded together and did the unthinkable - they publicly spoke out about the campaign in Iraq and demanded the troops, their husbands, be brought home.
In July they took their story to the local TV station.
WTOC SAVANNAH, WOMAN 1: Granted they are defending America, you know, but they can just send them over there and fight and fight and fight, and they're human. They feel they're emotionally drained.
REPORTER: And so are they. While many endure the hardships of being a single parent, many of them are enduring the horror stories they're being told.
WOMAN 2: He actually told me he has nothing else to give. He just really wants to come home with his family because the treatment and the things that he's had to endure over there, is ridiculous.
WOMAN 3: Our morale is not high or even low our morale is nonexistent.
Such dissent from within the military community, particularly during the course of a war, was unprecedented. The wives held meetings, wrote letters and spoke to local and national media. It was a shock to the town.
PAT DONAHUE: So this level of outspokenness was pretty new, especially around here.
Kimberly Hernandez was one of the wives who spoke out. Her husband Carlos is a sergeant in the Third Infantry Division.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Was it in Baghdad or in Fallujah where it was the day you were suppose to pack to come home that they told you, you weren't?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: Baghdad.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: The very day that they were packing to come home, they said, "You're gonna stay." Sent them to Fallujah.
Carlos Hernandez has just returned home after nearly 11 months in Iraq and Kuwait. Kimberly was just one of hundreds of women at Fort Stewart agitating for her husband's return.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: The whole post, you know, was very gung-ho and very involved and very ready to do anything they needed to do to get their soldier home.
The top military brass reacted. A general from another base was sent to talk to the wives. It was reported that at one closed-door meeting with 800 furious wives, a colonel had to be escorted from the room. The biggest reprimand, though, came from the wife of the division's commanding general. Anita Blount is one of the most influential women on base. She wrote a letter to the local military paper, saying the wives' campaign could encourage more guerilla attacks against US troops.
When the Iraqis see media coverage of disgruntled Americans publicly campaigning for the return of our soldiers from Iraq, they are encouraged and believe their strategy is working.
Kimberly Hernandez started getting phone calls.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: A lot of the calls that I was getting from people who were perceiving it in a negative way, felt that if we were over here saying, you know, we want our soldiers to come home, that the people in the Middle East would think that we're trying to get them all home, that we don't want them there and they might try harder to target them, to make them all leave as before in the first Gulf War when they left.
REPORTER: So who was saying this kind of thing?
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Different people and I would get phone calls, you know, this is how it's being perceived, this is how you want to be perceived.
REPORTER: So what kind of people were calling you?
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: I really wouldn't want to give names or anything like that. But it was...impressionable.
REPORTER: But you were receiving phone calls?
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Yeah.
Kimberly took this on board and cancelled a rally she'd been planning. She was also worried she was being seen as anti-war, which she's not. When news of the wives' campaign reached the troops in Iraq, they were surprised but supportive.
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: We was happy, because speaking out is something that we can't do. There is no excuse for it. We cannot, I mean, express our feelings in the military. You just can't. And most of the time when we did talk to the wives, you couldn't help it, but your feelings were expressed, you know, on the situation. So, basically the wives spoke out for the soldiers.
For at least some of the troops, this was a time of low morale. It was when the expectation of a short, sharp victory as welcomed liberators gave way to the reality of an ongoing, dangerous occupation.
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: And the thought of OK, I made it through the most heaviest battle and now they're going to make me stay longer and I thought I made it through the war and I might get killed, you know, from some little something, not war, just a terrorist attack and not make it home.
Morale may have been bad, but no one was prepared for the news America woke up to one morning in July. A group of 3rdID soldiers effectively broke ranks on prime-time television and attacked those responsible for the war.
REPORTER: What was the reaction amongst the other soldiers when you saw that they had actually given these interviews?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: We was all... Wow. Yeah.
REPORTER: Wow in a positive or a negative sense?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: No in a positive sense.
KIMBERLEY HERNANDEZ: Kind of unbelievable, don't you think?
SERGEANT CARLOS HERNANDEZ: It's like, whooh.
Back at Fort Stewart, the locals were horrified. For Butch Hemmingway, who's lived in the town ever since his tour of Vietnam, it was simply unforgivable.
BUTCH HEMMINGWAY, HINESVILLE VIETNAM VETERANS ASSOCIATION: I don't think they should have done it, that's a personal opinion. I think they broke that code. My personal opinion is they ruined their careers, but who knows. We'll see when they get back.
REPORTER: What's this code? Tell me about the code.
BUTCH HEMMINGWAY: You should never speak out against your leaders if you disagree with what they're doing. I mean you just don't do that. You're going to ruin your career if you do.
The tension in Fort Stewart has only been resolved by the return home of the soldiers.
PAT DONAHUE: It had better be about a year or so before this community is asked to go back over there. I mean it's been pretty much put through the ringer since March. So, you know, if the Pentagon decides that we need to send the Third Infantry back over, it better wait, it better wait a good year and a half to make that happen.
Here at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the troops that are replacing the Third ID in Iraq are training.
These soldiers are from the 82nd Airborne Division. They're leaving for Iraq in less than a week. Today they're touching up on their urban warfare skills.
SERGEANT WHITE, 82nd AIRBORNER DIVISION: We do things the textbook way initially to show you exactly how it's done but this is not textbook, OK. Iraq is not going to be textbook.
Sergeant White and around half his squad have only recently returned from the war in Afghanistan. Others, like Private Masseth, are just out of high school. They're preparing to enter what's now being called an insurgent guerrilla war.
SERGEANT WHITE: Each room is its own little battleground, alright? Collapse your sector put in security, everything will be fucking fine, alright? Screw around, stop paying attention, boom, lose your situational awareness, you're gonna get shot, OK, or worse than that, you'll live and one of your buddies' gonna get shot.
Fort Bragg is one of the biggest military bases in America and has played a key role in George Bush's war on terror.
REPORTER: That one's off to Iraq, is it?
SERGEANT WHITE: Yep. Any of the C-17s like that that are leaving here are going to Iraq.
Like Fort Stewart, Fort Bragg and the surrounding town is steeped in military history and culture. It's been a major military town since before the Second World War.
But just a few miles from where the troops are training, voices are being raised against the deployment, again from within the military. It's a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Fayetteville, the home of Fort Bragg. The local peace group is holding their weekly anti-war vigil.
Lorraine Butner used to be in the military. She says the small numbers at the vigil do not reflect a lack of support.
REPORTER: Do you think that there are many military families who feel the same way in this town?
LORRAINE BUTNER: Yes, there are. There are very many others. But a lot of people are afraid to come out and say anything. I mean, it can hurt them it can hurt their career, it can - what the wife does can hurt the husband's career, or vice versa. What they do and what they say has its effects.
There's a strong belief in military circles that the behaviour of a spouse can directly affect a soldier's career. Conventional military wisdom says this woman is taking a risk even standing here.
PAM NOLAN: I read all that was on your website because I was looking for different things, different activities that were going on.
Nevertheless there are some wives of serving members of the military who are willing to speak publicly. Pam Nolan's husband is a soldier currently deployed in Iraq. At the last election, Pam was a vocal supporter of George W. Bush, even joining the National Republican Women's Association. That's all changed now.
PAM NOLAN: Now I completely distrust President Bush and I was one of - my kids can tell you, I was a firm, firm supporter, strong supporter of President Bush - he was like a hero to me.
LITTLE BOY: How many died in Iraq? Like 600 or something.
LITTLE GIRL: Everything was like George Bush, you screamed, in Texas, you screamed.
PAM NOLAN:I was like "Yeah, George Bush, yeah."
Back in January, Pam was also a supporter of plans to invade Iraq.
PAM NOLAN: You know, I was buying into it. Before the war most Americans, a majority of Americans were buying into, we were concerned about weapons of mass destruction, we were concerned about, you know, Saddam supporting terrorism, the al-Qa'ida connection and all that. American people were buying into it.
REPORTER: So you thought it was a good idea to go to war?
PAM NOLAN: Right. You know, it's better, you know, to do something before, you know, we get, you know, attacked. That's what what we were led to believe that if we didn't do something immediately we were gonna be wiped out.
Pam no longer believes in the reasons given by the Administration for going to war. She now suspects it was all about oil. This has led her to change her view about her husband's involvement in the war.
PAM NOLAN: When he joined the army, you know, he and I both believed he would never be sent into combat unless it was for the purpose of defending our country... and that's not - I don't see that now.
Pam now thinks the US should hand authority over to the United Nations, she says her views are shared by many other spouses at Fort Bragg.
PAM NOLAN: I think it's very widespread but I think that the wives are afraid or they feel intimidated about saying anything, and I did too.
But she says there is a need to speak out.
PAM NOLAN: Our troops need our support, our troops need us maybe also to support them in a way that other Americans think is unpatriotic but they need us to support us, say bring our troops home now, let's bring our troops home, let's get our guys out of there. I think that's supporting them a lot more because we're saying, you know, we don't want one more soldier killed, not one more US soldier killed, you know, for something that we don't believe is right.
More and more military people are now speaking out. Last month, a national Bring Them Home Now campaign was launched in Fayetteville, Fort Bragg.
ERIN BIRD: My name is Erin Bird, and I'm an army brat. My father is retired in the army, after 20 years, my sister is a first lieutenant in the army in Germany right now - she's just gotten orders to go to Kuwait and then I have uncles in the air force and uncles in the military so like so many people I have a lot of military in my family and I love the military and I thank the military for everything it's done for me. And as we send our soldiers off to risk their lives, more of them, I want to ask America to reflect on the last two years of deceit and half-truths. It seems that the coalition of the willing was more willing to lie to the American people and the people of the world.
Nearly everyone in this room is connected to the military in some way. The campaign is inspired in part by President Bush's "bring 'em on" challenge when asked about attacks on US forces in Iraq.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH: There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on.
NANCY LESSIN, MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT: Today, we want to talk about the three words of false bravado uttered by President Bush from a safe and secure location surrounded by armed guards that taunted those shooting at our loved ones. Those three words galvanised Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other veterans organisations to initiate the campaign we are launching today. George Bush said "bring 'em on", we say "Bring them home now."
Unlike the wives of Fort Stewart, they don't just want their troops home, they want all troops home - this is a decidedly anti-war movement.
SUSAN SCHUMAN, MILITARY FAMILIES SPEAK OUT: It's very difficult for me to speak these three words. My only child - without losing it - anyway, I'm going to say it - my only child, Justin, was deployed out of Fort Bragg on March 29, 2003, and he's now stationed in northern Iraq in Samara in the heart of the Sunni triangle. He and the rest of his National Guard Unit received a direct mortar attack. His office received a direct mortar attack a couple of weeks ago. He and the rest of his National Guard Unit are under constant daily ambushes, under constant danger. Two months ago, the President said, essentially, the war is over, but the ground truth, as our troops who are there in Iraq now say, is a constant guerilla war, daily chaos, a lack of planning, lack of basic supplies and equipment, lack of personnel, living conditions that grind our troops to exhaustion. How many of Bush's cabinet members have loved ones in the military in Iraq?
Fernando Suarez De Solar has travelled all the way from California to be here. He's also here to speak about his son.
FERNANDO SUAREZ DE SOLAR: I lost my son in this illegal war. My grandson lost his father in this Bush war. And I ask you, Mr President, how many kids do you need for over this illegal war? And I ask the American people how many kids you need for your gasoline in your car? How many kids do you need for finish this terrific situation? I lose my son, but there's a lot of sons in Iraq right now. And I want and my wife want everyone come back, come back home right now! Thank you.
Organisers say they have 1,000 signed-up members around the country with thousands more interested. Veteran Stan Goff is one of the driving forces behind the campaign. He says that once it became public, they were flooded with support.
STAN GOFF, BRING THEM HOME NOW, CAMPAIGNER: Like 2,000 emails in 24 hours. Overwhelmingly, I would say 70%, 80% of these emails are very, very supportive and a lot of them are from people in military families who really want to be connected to some sort of an organisation because they have some real concerns.
Stan Goff is retired from a long career in the military. He's served in eight conflict areas including Vietnam, Grenada, Guatemala, Somalia, Haiti and Colombia. He's worked extensively in special operations and even taught at the prestigious military academy West Point. He thinks the operation in Iraq is unravelling.
STAN GOFF: We've got 150,000 roughly between us and the Brits and a handful of other people, 150,000 troops that are supposed to be in there in a geographic area the size of California with 23 million people who don't want to be occupied and they think that they can successfully conduct an occupation. That's absurd.
The Bring Them Home Now campaign is operating a busy website. They've been watching closely what happened to the wives' campaign at Fort Stewart, and are using that as a cautionary tale.
STAN GOFF: It sounds to me like it's effectively dampened their public dissent. One of the things that we're doing through the Bring Them Home campaign and the website is people can send us their grievances, send us their concerns, send us their complaints and we don't have to put their name on there, but we're going to make sure that that message gets heard.
SERGEANT WHITE: OK, check it out. Look. What we're going to talk about here, we're going to talk about some Iraqi and Arab culture and things and we're also going to give you a real brief history on Iraq. Now...
In under a week, Sergeant White from the 82nd Airborne Division will lead his men to Iraq. Today they're getting a crash course in everything from who Mohammed was...
SERGEANT WHITE: Now everybody knows who Mohammed is, right, he's the guy who founded Islam.
...to the attitude of the Shi'ite majority in Iraq.
SERGEANT WHITE: But don't think just because there's no trouble in Shi'ite neighbourhoods that they're going to pat you on the back and give you a coke and say "Hey, good job America", alright, they don't like you any more than anybody else does because you're a non believer you're an infidel, OK, and that's just the way that it is. And you can get that in your mind - doesn't matter if you're black, you're white, Hispanic, Thai or whatever, that they don't like you because you're not a Muslim. And even if you were a Muslim, they wouldn't like you because you're American, so you're screwed no matter what, OK. Just remember that.
For the troops on the front line of this war, there's no longer any talk of the US being joyfully greeted as liberators. Everyone acknowledges the stark reality of what this has become - an unwelcome occupation.
SERGEANT WHITE: But you need to keep in mind these people's mindset. They're paranoid, OK. They don't trust the West, alright. They are - well, they may not be the most devout - some of them may not be the most devout Muslims in the world, they're still Muslims and Muslims have a general aversion to non-Muslims being in their countries. OK, because they have a long memory, it goes all the way back to the Crusades. OK. The only reason they can think of for us to be there, we must want to get rid of fucking...Islam, we must want all their oil - that's what they're thinking, OK. That's not true, it's not what we're there for, but that's their mindset.
Here at Fort Bragg, there's little sympathy for the military families who want the troops brought home. In these dangerous times, they argue, solidarity is needed.
SERGEANT WHITE: These people are, they're aiding the terrorists. They read that and it just reinforces the perception that Americans cut and run their casualties and when things get tough, we take off. All they're doing is they're propagating more attacks on soldiers by doing that, because these people are thinking "Hmm, if I kill one more soldier, it all adds up, sooner or later the Americans are going to leave," and we're not gonna leave Iraq.
It's clear, though, that even the military's top brass is reading the warning signs coming from disgruntled family members. Major General Charles Scwannack is in charge of the 82nd Airborne Division, some of whom were sent first to Afghanistan and now Iraq.
MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES SCWANNACK, 82nd AIRBORNE DIVISION: But the tough part is when you go back to the well time after again to go ahead and deploy our troopers, it's the family members, the kids and the spouses that go ahead and take a huge burden on back here and that's where it starts getting a little bit tough and that's where I have a concern, that they go back to the well too much with deployment after deployment after deployment after deployment and that will be manifested in the fact that I don't think we'll get the quality people re-enlisting to stay in the army, because of that, because of the workload that we have.
That workload is not diminishing. Unless the situation in Iraq changes, fresh American troops will be needed for months, if not years. 'Bring Them Home Now' campaigner Stan Goff is now facing this on a more personal level. To Stan's horror, his son recently joined the military, and has just been deployed to Iraq.
REPORTER: What did you think when he was called up for Iraq?
STAN GOFF: Oh, you know, we were beside ourselves. I have to accommodate that I believe the Iraqis have every right to resist an occupation of their own country and at the same time, I have to hope that my son gets back OK. You know, that's a tough thing to sort of hold on to both those beliefs at the same time, you know. Like, if a foreign power came in and invaded us here, we would fight them.
What happens with this movement of spouses and family members will no doubt depend on the course of the war. While towns like Fort Bragg and Fort Stewart are incredibly patriotic, every death of a US soldier is felt more acutely here than anywhere else.
PAM NOLAN: I believe that it will get bigger if this situation continues as it is because every day another soldier killed, another two soldiers killed and yet they know how the situation, how it is for their spouses over there, their sons, their brothers. There's going to be a lot more family members speaking up, more spouses too, I believe so.
REPORTER: Bronwyn Adcock