Military issues drive vote in N.C.

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. -- Living near the Marine Corps' largest base and watching new houses and schools going up to hold military families, Roger Denoncourt doesn't feel much of the economic pressure that is defining the 2008 presidential election.

The retired Marine says his vote will go to candidates he sees as supportive of the military.

Voters across the USA will go to the polls Nov. 4. They will consider the military debate that has divided the nation as they choose between Democrat Barack Obama, who has opposed the Iraq war from the start, and Republican John McCain, who backed it, favored sending more troops and argues for keeping them in Iraq for the long haul.

In North Carolina, home to five military bases, the question has added significance.

Leaving Iraq would risk thwarting gains in security, says Denoncourt, 57, after shopping at a Kmart near Camp Lejeune.

"I think that would be the biggest mistake America's ever made, to pull out. We're the world leader — and we need to be the leader — and we went over there to help the world, not just America."

One hundred miles up N.C. Highway 24, a former soldier buying gloves at a pawn shop near Fort Bragg expressed doubt.

"It's a lot of people getting killed over there," says Clarence Smith, a veteran of the 1989 Panama invasion, "and you tend to wonder: How far do we go?"

The Iraq war's toll weighs on North Carolina. Camp Lejeune has lost 288 troops in Iraq and Fayetteville's Fort Bragg has lost 186, according to the website iCasualties.org. At least 11 others who died came from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and Seymour Johnson and Pope Air Force bases.

News of deployments and casualties "certainly elevates military affairs high into the consciousness of North Carolina voters," says Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Long tours of duty have put stress on families and fostered doubts about the war, even in a place with a conservative, patriotic bent, Guillory says.