Our boys did not even get the damned sand out of their uniforms yet.

About 300 U.S. soldiers who just weeks ago returned home to Alaska after a year in Iraq are being ordered back to try to help bolster security in Baghdad, the U.S. Army said on Monday.

The soldiers are part of the 3,900-strong 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Wainwright in Alaska. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on July 27 ordered the unit to remain in Iraq for up to four months past its scheduled departure.

The order provoked anger and disappointment among some of the soldiers' families in Alaska. It also made clear that any significant reduction in the 135,000-strong U.S. force in Iraq was unlikely in the immediate future.

The brigade was so far along in the process of flowing out of Iraq after its yearlong tour that 380 soldiers had returned home to Alaska and 300 had arrived in Kuwait en route home, the Army said.

All of the brigade's soldiers who had reached Kuwait were sent back into Iraq, the Army said. And now, 300 of the 380 who made it to Alaska will be sent back to Iraq within the next couple of weeks, said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

I don't know how these brave men are feeling, but I can imagine that their families must be torn up at the possibility of their loved ones not making it back this next time after surviving the first deployment. How many times can you whistle past the graveyard before your luck runs out?

I think that the November election should be very eye opening indeed. It is time to send a message.