For U.S. military families, Iraq war can't end short of victory

Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON — Michael Anderson can recount his son's last moments on earth down to the second.

He knows that the night before his son, Marine Cpl. Michael Anderson Jr. , died in the battle for Fallujah he slept in a 17-degree room on a piece of cardboard and that he shared his blanket and iPod with a friend. He knows that on Dec. 14, 2004 , his son and comrades shimmied down a rooftop to ambush a group of insurgents, opened the roof's hatch, threw in a grenade and listened for screams before heading inside.

And he knows that the bullet that hit his son pierced his fourth and fifth ribs and killed him instantly.

The Modesto, Calif. , resident said he also knew that the Iraq war was working and that it must work or the deaths of his son and the more than 3,800 other members of the U.S. military would have been in vain.

"The surge is working," he said. "I sat through some briefings and investigated for myself. I've talked to the boots on the ground. My opinion is that the leaders who are trying to run this war from the comfort of their well-decorated and comfortable offices are wrong................

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