07 January 2012

Still Deploying...

Yes, they're bringing troops home. And yes, there are others still deploying.

Heading off to war seems so 2002, not 2012.

And yet, here we are.

"It's like all of America forgot that we're still going out there. My husband's going to Afghanistan. I have to tell people it's a whole different war," said Chaniqua Moore, 23, a Washington mother of two who was one of 80 families saying goodbye to their soldiers Thursday morning at the D.C. Armory.

Amira Ayala, 20, will spend the next year alone in her new Front Royal, Va., home with her 2-month-old daughter while her husband is deployed. "I keep thinking that maybe they'll just say it's canceled, and he'll come back," she said.

Ayala dated a Marine once and dealt with his deployment. But she married a National Guard soldier and hoped it would be different.

But it isn't, because America has relied on its National Guard volunteers in unprecedented numbers for its two wars. Hundreds of thousands of guardsmen have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan during the past decade.


By: Brant

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