But amid the cacophony of the whys and wherefores, the coulda and shoulda prognostications, spare a thought or two for the people fighting the war.

Think of Army Capt. Vince Morris, a hard-charging company commander with the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment that's normally stationed in Vilseck, Germany. It's doubtful he'll be following the anniversary debates. And that won't be because he's out on a mission here in Diyala province where his men are. He's in a military hospital elsewhere in Iraq recovering from the severe concussion he suffered when terrorists blew up his armored vehicle right outside the entrance to Forward Operating Base Normandy, northeast of Baqubah.

Sgt. Rob Robertson will be working from his combat operations post -- sans television, radio or newspapers -- in the town of Himbus in Diyala's "bread basket" conducting foot patrols, searching for improvised explosive devices, weapons caches and terrorists who went to ground after a major U.S. and Iraqi push into the region in January. And when he's not doing that, he and the men of 3/2's Iron Company will be sorting through scores of applications from people in his area wanting to join Concerned Local Citizens groups, the armed neighborhood watch units renamed Sons of Iraq, which are viewed as a major contributor to increased security elsewhere in the country.

"What about this one, this Ahmed guy?" he asked a colleague the other night while sitting in his tent. "He was a sergeant in Saddam's army."

Ahmed had earlier been photographed, questioned and fingerprinted during a recruitment drive. If Ahmed passes initial vetting, he could be given a mid-level leadership spot in a Sons of Iraq unit at $450 a month.

Capt. Matt Ross and Lt. Andy Teague of the 2nd SBCTs's Golf Company have a different distraction: trying to get Sunni residents forced out of a village by Shiite Jaish al-Madi militiamen -- who are also believed members of the local Iraqi Police force -- to actually identify the culprits so they can be arrested.

"I showed them (one of the displaced families) the book of photographs of the IPs," Teague told the captain. "They picked 10. When I told them I needed statements to see about arresting the guys who forced them out they suddenly picked every Shiite IP they could recognize. I don't know what's true. How do we sort this out?"

"Joes," as soldiers call themselves, will elsewhere be immersed in other, usually monotonous duties. They'll be walking the streets in villages, towns and cities showing their presence to enhance feelings of increased security for the locals and to gather information on al-Qaida and nationalist insurgent groups, they'll be turning wrenches to keep aircraft aloft and armored vehicles running or pushing the piles of administrative paper that goes with deployment and operations.

Dangerous out here? Yes. Every journey off a FOB or COP is a coin-toss on encountering a mine, a vehicle packed with explosives or someone wearing an explosive vest. Nearly 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq since 2003, the majority of them as a result of hostile action. And in the past year the majority of deaths have resulted from IED explosions, say U.S. military officials.

There are about 160,000 Army, Marines, airmen and Navy personnel in Iraq in 2008. Many are back for their second or third tours.

Those who work "outside the wire" -- the non-administrative or non-support personnel -- are different today than in the past. Their roles have expanded from door-kicking to root out the enemy to include peacekeeping tasks, such as mediating community disputes, helping rebuild infrastructure, encouraging Iraqi projects to help create jobs for the people and mentoring their Iraqi counterparts.

(In 2007 U.S. commanders in Iraq alone funded 6,400 Iraqi projects through their emergency reconstruction funds, according to State Department statistics. That means schools, hospitals and water facilities were built or rebuilt with U.S. military oversight and with Iraqis providing the labor and, in some cases, additional monies.)

Everyone of those 160,000 knows how many months they have left in their 15-month deployments, and as the time nears to go home the general number of months or weeks became exact number of days.

"I'm great: 78 more days," Ensign Jamie Allen called out to the soldiers he is serving with here when one asked how he was. "Just 78 more days."

But ask Allen or any other service member here what day of the week it is, and there will be a pause as they try to figure it out. "What day is it?" a soldier laughed and said when asked by a reporter, who was equally without a clue. "How the F do I know. This is Iraq, man. Who cares?"

It was understandable. One day blends into the next here.

One year has blended into five now. You don't hear the soldiers speak about it, or about the woulda, coulda, shoulda. There are gripes by the truckload of course, and rivers of expletives. But in quieter moments, when you ask them over a fire or at the smoking pit, deeper thoughts come out. Most believe they are doing good. Children out on the streets playing or going to school, markets open and people going about a normal life of sorts contributes to those feelings. They marvel at the potential of Iraq, its agricultural land, its history. Then, of course, they swear profusely over the slow progress Iraqis seem to make in taking control of their communities and lives, but then add the caveat that under Saddam, and even before, they were never allowed to.

All want to leave as soon as they can. There's no place like home. The question for them, as for America itself, is how soon and in what manner.

"They (the soldiers) always say they hate it here, but this is our job," said a lieutenant in Iraq just seven months. "We all signed up in a time of war. We can't just say we don't want to do it anymore. We go out of the wire, see AQI (al-Qaida Iraq) cut off heads and others burn down homes, and we do our best to fight it, to stop it.

"We'll go home with a sense of accomplishment. We'll go home knowing we did something in our lives that nothing will compare with. But most people don't care what the soldier wants to say. They'll hear what they want to hear."

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