For some troops, a gift of the Fourth of July at home

Kelsey Mire can locate Iraq on a globe. It took some practice, but the 5-year-old has it down. First, she finds her home state of Louisiana, then slowly twists the globe to the left, tracing her finger over a big white blob - the Pacific Ocean - and past a patchwork of shapes until she finds Iraq nestled half a world away from this Cajun country.

"That's where my daddy's going," she says, having found it proudly. "He's going to Iraq to make the whole world safe."

When her father, National Guardsman John Paul Mire, learned of his brigade's deployment this spring, he brought the globe home so Kelsey would always know where he was. But thanks to the citizens of his home state, Lieutenant Mire will have one more opportunity to see his family before being shipped overseas for 18 months.

Taking part in "Operation Independence Day," Louisiana residents donated over $300,000 so that these 3,000 soldiers could come home from Fort Hood, Texas, where they've been training for several months. The troops were recently granted leave over the July Fourth holiday and, while many could afford the trip, many could not. Now, anyone who wants to return can - and that's about 99 percent of them.

The outpouring of support - initiated by Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco - comes at a time when an increasing number of Americans are questioning America's presence in Iraq. More than a year after war started, just when many thought American involvement would be winding down, the US is calling up reinforcements. And with this week's announcement that the Army will call up 5,600 previously discharged soldiers, there's a keener awareness of just how deeply the US is engaged - and of a national ambivalence that may only grow. [Editor's note: The original version mistakenly referred to the soldiers as "not on active duty" rather than "previously discharged."]

Yet in this land of swamps and shrimp gumbo, that ambivalence is largely absent. The most important thing now, say residents, is to support their troops: Louisiana has more soldiers in the National Guard per capita - and more now deployed in the war effort - than any other state.

"Everybody knows somebody who's in the National Guard," says Mire's wife, Heather.

The soldiers don't expect everyone to agree with the mission, but they say support is critical to their jobs. "There are a lot of questions about our involvement in Iraq," says Sgt. Clinton Bond. "So to learn that Louisiana broke its back to help us means so much to us. It put tears in our eyes."

Still, he won't be coming home for the long weekend. "Saying goodbye again would be too hard," he says. His wife is being deployed with the same brigade, and Hunter, their 8-month-old is with his mother, Cathy.

The chubby toddler crawls under his grandmother's feet as Cathy explains how she's taken time off work to look after Hunter. "I'm just enjoying being a grandmother. Motherhood comes back to you pretty quick - although he's a lot heavier than I remember my two babies being."

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