Fayetteville photo-op

President Bush came to Fort Bragg and Fayetteville on July 4. It's becoming something of a ritual: poll numbers sagging, fierce debate about the Iraq war erupting, fly into North Carolina's most famous military town for a round of cheerleading.

Bush's short speech was remarkably unremarkable, as one can gather from his two big applause lines:

"I am going to make you this promise. I am not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done."

Critics have expressed concern about the cost of the war with the national debt climbing past $8 trillion and Fort Bragg operating on a less than a fifth of its $1 million daily budget requirement.

"I'll make you another pledge," Bush said. "We are going to make sure you have the resources you need to defeat our enemies in Iraq and secure the peace for generations to come."

More money, stay the course, etc. No wonder that not everyone who came was there to applaud the war effort:

About 2,500 names, handwritten on poster board, stretched around the Market House on Tuesday.

"They signify the names of the 2,500 troops who have died since the war in Iraq started," said Lou Plummer, a Fayetteville peace activist [and veteran] [...]

Plummer said protesters would read the names of the 800 U.S. military personnel killed since Bush's last visit to Fayetteville in the summer of 2005.

Speakers included Jacek Teller, a former marine and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Now a student at East Carolina University, Jacek spent nine months in Iraq. He said he lost his best friend on the first day of the Iraq invasion.

Meanwhile, an AP story today points to the lingering homelessness problem among veterans. There are some 200,000 homeless vets in the country; 10% from the two Gulf wars, and 40% from Vietnam. As 26-year-old Iraq II vet Herold Noel, who deployed from Georgia and is struggling to make ends meet after coming home from the Gulf, says:

This is not what I fought for, what I almost died for. This is not what I was supposed to come home to.