My first question is: What is president-elect Obama going to do with the troops once he takes office? I've heard that he's been wishy-washy about bringing them home, but I'm not sure.

My second question is: My Marine will be deployed to Iraq/more likely Afghanistan in April. I have MANY friends who are in the military. One of my friends who is in the Army, called me a couple times a week while he was in Iraq, my other friend who is a Marine, had generic emails sent to his family and that's all. So, what's up with communication during deployment? I'm pretty sure it depends on the base, and the availibilty of internet/phone lines in the area, but I'm not quite sure.

Any answers are much apprieciated!!

From a Canadian point of view. We have had several Canadians killed in the last month. The last three on the same road as the other ones. We have a 'highway of heroes' here in Ontario from the Trent AFB where the bodies are brought from overseas. The last six were saluted from the overpasses as they went west to the Toronto area.

I think Obama is stuck n the middle and I think the troops are over there till 20l2. As for communication, you are asking the wrong people. Consult the military I am sure they have hot lines for these questions of military wives.

Although a lot of election promises were made, it is just not possible to withdraw them very quickly. So there will be studies and plans made and then a slow withdraw that will most likely be over several years ( unless they decide not to withdraw) But this is only for Iraq, not Afgan, where the troops will remain, there was no plan to withdraw them from there that I know of.

And communication is all up to what location and even what duty they do. My son had access to internet almost daily, other troops seldom do. Many at least in some years had access to various phones depending on location.

Communication during deployment depends on the location and the job in the military. In Iraq/Afganistan it's a bit more tricky because they are war zones and some areas don't have internet or anything like that so the communication can be limited. But if your fiancé is at a base with internet access you should get the Yahoo Voice (http://voice.yahoo.com/). He can call you from a computer and it's a lot cheaper than calling on cell phones. It's what my boyfriend and I did when he was stationed in Korea.

All communication depends on job, base, nature of operation, availability and relation to the person (obviously if they have limited time for all the military personal calling the wife and kids will take priority over calling that guy you met in a bar). The military only really guarantees letting you know if your loved ones are OK every 3 weeks in some cases. So no one can really answer that especially since he's a marine and his job can change.

As far as Obama too my knowledge... he is talking about removing the infantry and the combat forces however, the emergency personal (medics, firefighters, military police, etc... ) may be left behind training the people.

I'm a 68w in the regular army

My mom just got back from afganistan and when she did get back she had mentioned that possibly over the next couple of years or so they will slow with-draw or at least reduce the number of troops that are in Iraq but as for afganistan we will not be pulling out or withdrawing, as we still have a lot to do in afganistan

Although I do not agree at all with pulling us out of the war in Iraq because we still have major problems over there which I hope President Obama will recognize and see that we need those problems taken care of before we do any type of pulling our