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Many GIs In Iraq Want to Keep Fighting

Across Iraq, U.S. soldiers risking their lives daily in combat are also re-upping by the thousands, bolstering the Army`s flagging manpower at a time when many young Americans are unwilling to serve. Since 2001, the Army has surpassed its retention targets by wider margins each year, showing an unexpectedly robust ability to retain soldiers in a time of war. To be sure, the hardship of repeated, year-long combat tours away from families is discouraging some soldiers, and retention is likely to slip among lower-ranking officers and enlisted soldiers, who bear the brunt of grueling overseas assignments, according to Army officials and military analysts.

While the force is facing a shortfall in recruitment of new soldiers, it raised its retention goal this year by 8,000 people and still exceeded it, with nearly 70,000 soldiers, or 108 percent of the target, choosing to stay in the Army. On palace rooftops and pockmarked streets, GIs are reenlisting in rituals that range from dramatic to harrowing. Despite the risk and long months away from home, many soldiers say serving in Iraq gives them a powerful sense of purpose, a chance to use their skills and cement a bond with fellow soldiers who become like an extended family.

Soldiers have taken the oath in gaudy former residences of Saddam Hussein and in the spider hole near Tikrit where the gray-bearded fugitive was captured in December 2003. One cavalryman reenlisted on a median of Baghdad`s treacherous airport road, others made the pledge during a lull in fighting in the battle for Fallujah in November 2004. About half of the Army`s enlisted soldiers now reenlist after their first term.