The cost of Bush's war in my state.

Bernadette Friday is trying to keep her hands busy. That's what an elder told her to do. Keep your hands busy so your mind doesn't wander to bad thoughts.

She has followed the advice for months. But as her husband, a part-time soldier in the Alaska Army National Guard, prepared to leave this remote Eskimo village for combat duty in Iraq, she couldn't help but feel "uitacurlak."

"I don't know how to say it in English," she said, fighting back tears. "Anxiety attack? Worry about?"

She wasn't alone. All across the Bush this month, men from remote Native villages said goodbye to their families and village life to fight for a year in Iraq. It is the largest wartime deployment the Alaska Army National Guard has ever seen.

These are a proud and simple people who survive in the harshest of climates by relying closely on their families and neighbors. The loss of these men will have a devastating effect on many of these families.

This is not what they signed up for.