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FORT CAMPELL, Ky. -- The billboard across from the huge Army post here reads patriotism, pure and simple: "We Support Our Troops, Our President."
But talk to members of military families in the parking lot next door, and the emotions are a good deal more complex. Samie Drown, 28, voted for George W. Bush in 2000, and she was stoic and supportive when her husband, a member of the Army's elite 101st Airborne Division, was secretly shipped off to Iraq with less than a week's notice last year. Mrs. Drown took care of their four young children as the 101st led United States troops into Baghdad.
But now, with the occupation dragging on and casualties mounting week by week, she says she feels her views shifting. And not just about the war, but about the president who sent her husband to Iraq.
"This has completely changed my view of the administration," said Mrs. Drown, wearing an American flag T-shirt and sunglasses. "My husband is a soldier and his job is to fight for freedom. But after so many months and so many deaths, no one has shown us any weapons of mass destruction or given us an explanation.
"So a lot of military wives are now asking: `Why? Why did we go to Iraq?' The administration talked a strong story, but a lot of us are kicking our butts about how we voted last time around. Now we're leaning the other way."
She is not certain how she will vote in this year's presidential contest, though right now she says she would not vote for Mr. Bush. "I am watching very closely and waiting to see how things turn out."
As the conflict in Iraq deepens beyond some prior predictions, the military voting block could become a serious domestic casualty for the Bush administration.
Certainly there are many members of the military who still support Mr. Bush whole-heartedly. "I don't think we should have been there as long as we have, but I think President Bush did the right thing sending us over there and I will vote for him again," said Catherine Acevedo, 25, whose husband did a tour in Iraq and who is a former soldier herself.
Still, it was clear at Fort Campbell, based on more than three dozen interviews here this week, that the Republican Party will have to work harder this year to keep the votes of military families, a group who at other times could be counted as Republican stalwarts.
Polls of the military are few and tend to be unreliable since pollsters have only limited access to military bases, and many military personnel are scattered overseas. A recent Washington Post/CBS Poll found that military personnel were still 2-to-1 Republican, but a CBS News survey found that 40 to 48 percent of people from "military families" would vote for Senator John Kerry, said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University who studies military-civilian relations.
Various studies in the past have found that overall, military personnel and their families vote at least 2-to-1 Republican; in some subsets, like elite officers, the ratio is as high as 9 to 1.
But that backbone of support can no longer be taken for granted, experts say. And the large number of military personnel in swing states like West Virginia, Florida and New Mexico means that small shifts in military voting could prove decisive in the national election.
"Iraq has put great strain on the forces and looks a good deal more ambiguous than it did a year ago, and that has spawned a lot of disgruntled comments," Professor Feaver said. "That is probably not enough to give Kerry an edge outright, but it does eat into the Republicans' natural advantage."
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