Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Thursday, December 3, 2009 9:31 am TWN, By Kevin Maurer And Russ Bynum, AP



	U.S. President Barack Obama greets cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, Tuesday. (Reuters) More Photos (3)

Sponsors
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!

U.S. to send more troops

At the John Hoover Inn, a bar in Evans Mills, N.Y., near Fort Drum, a dozen soldiers watched the speech on a large-screen TV, drinking beer out of red cups. When Obama announced the troop increase, only one cheered, and the rest remained silent. They continued to play darts while the president was speaking.

“I'm just relieved to know where we're going,” said Spc. Adam Candee, 29, of Chicago.

Theresa McCleod said she worries what Obama's plans might mean for her husband, a soldier in the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. She said he's already done a long combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving her to care for their three children.

“First he was supposed to be pulling everyone out, and now all the sudden he's throwing everybody back into Afghanistan and it's like nobody can really make up their minds,” McCleod said of Obama.

Obama's plan calls for deploying 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in the next six months, boosting total U.S. forces there to about 100,000. The first waves of Marines are expected to arrive by Christmas, with the rest coming by summer.

The president also began outlining an endgame to the war, saying troops would begin pulling out of Afghanistan in July 2011 — though he did not say when a withdrawal could be completed.

Army 1st Lt. Emily Stahl, who is preparing to deploy from Fort Campbell next spring, said she's not going to focus on the timetable.

“We have to get the job done,” Stahl, 24, said after watching the speech from her home outside the Army post, where she serves in the 101st Airborne Division. “If we do what we're supposed to do, the end of the war will come when it comes.”

At home with her two young children in rural Byron, Ga., Traci Watson hopes the surge does work — and brings a swift end to the war.

Her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Dwayne Watson, is midway through a yearlong tour in Afghanistan with the Georgia National Guard's 48th Infantry Brigade, which has 2,400 troops helping to train Afghan security forces. While she's a little concerned the surge could delay her husband coming home around March, she also hopes it means he won't have to deploy again.

“There's always the worry that his orders might be extended and he might have to help transition between the ones they have coming and the ones that are leaving,” Watson said. “But if staying an extra 30 or 60 days meant he wouldn't have to be gone from our family a year later, absolutely.”

1|2