Should Syracuse University student Paul Mancuso be asked about American military presence in Iraq, he and his classmates would be ready for the discussion.

‘Of course it gets really heated because all of us have been involved in the war one way or another,’ said Mancuso, a sergeant in the Marine Corps and a student in this year’s Military Visual Journalism Program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

President Barack Obama announced the end of U.S. military presence in Iraq after seven years and promised to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan next summer on Tuesday evening in an address broadcast from the Oval Office. For those at SU associated with the Navy, Marine Corps, Army or Air Force, the announcement was a conversation topic throughout the next day.

Newhouse’s Military Visual Journalism Program, sponsored by the Department of Defense, is a 10-month long course open to 32 active-duty military personnel who learn about photojournalism and broadcast journalism skills.

The president’s address was discussed Wednesday morning among students, but there were different ways people were focusing on the topic, Mancuso said. While it reaffirmed one of Obama’s campaign promises, Mancuso said he is still in the mindset that troops will eventually go back.

Mancuso served with the 2nd Marine Division for six months in Afghanistan, between November 2003 and May 2004, and for nine months in Iraq, between February and November 2005. Mancuso was stationed in Al Karmah, Iraq, just east of Fallujah, militarily recognized as the most violence-prone Iraqi area. He said he thought there was still a job to be done.

‘We were fighting two wars,’ Mancuso said, referring to the initial invasion and then the mission to combat terrorism. ‘The second war is still going on and people kind of forget that.’

Army specialist Alex Torres, a military program student, said he did not think people were surprised by the announcement, but that many were only waiting to learn the specific date.

‘We’ve been getting out of there for so long, it’s not really a shocker,’ Torres said.

Torres returned in June from serving six months in Afghanistan. He had been creating documentary style films on local villages for the Army’s Psychological Operations unit. He said the Afghani people are some of the most polite he has ever met, but the area’s religious conflict has fostered an atmosphere of hatred, and local corruption has also created problems.

Troops in Afghanistan are currently helping to train the Afghani army. Obama said, in his address, next August would begin the transition to Afghan responsibility.

‘We can only help them so much,’ Torres said.

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Robert Storm, a military program student, served in Iraq at the start of the war. He said he was guarded when he heard the news that troops were moving out.

‘The final word is never the final word,’ Storm said.

Storm served two tours within the first two years of the Iraq war and one in Afghanistan in 2006.

He said the conditions in Iraq were poor during his tours, and he once saw a home made of garbage. Storm said he was unaware of how the area looked at present.

Storm has not heard the topic of Iraq and Afghanistan being widely discussed outside the military circle at SU, but he said that was likely because he and his classmates were more connected and affected by the decision. He expected the topic would come up during his mass media class.

But for Storm, rather than finalize a situation, Obama’s announcement created more questions.

‘Do I think there’s a chance two years from now I’ll be sent back?’ Storm said. ‘Bush said we were done with all the hostility, but how many years ago was that?’

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

 

Published on September 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride