FORT BRAGG, N.C. – To see the impact that the war in Iraq is having on U.S. families, one only needs to be here on this wooded, 160,789-acre Army base in the late night or early morning hours when 250 fully-dressed and armed soldiers are moved to the adjoining Pope Air Base to board a chartered aircraft that will take them to Iraq, Kuwait or another country in the Persian Gulf.

Get to the converted aircraft hangar about three or four hours earlier than the 2:30 A.M. liftoff and witness soldiers on cell phones, making those last calls home before flying nearly 7,000 miles to a strange land for an even stranger purpose. The blessed ones will be able to say good-bye in person to their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, romantic interests or close friends, many of whom have descended on this town within a town just for this occasion.

I drove here from Washington, D.C. over the weekend to see a friend, Sgt. First Class Henry “Pete” Washington, 53, of Carrollton, Ala., just before he was to depart for Kuwait. His wife, Minnie; their son, P.J.; daughter, Kim and one of his sisters, Liz, also traveled to North Carolina to see him off. No matter how strongly one feels about the war in Iraq – either pro or con – this is where the intellectual discourse about the war ends and reality begins.

Nothing can prepare a visitor for the sights and sounds of the teeming waiting area.

Though African-Americans make up just 12 percent of the U.S. population, early Sunday morning, they were approximately 40 percent of those about to depart. One didn’t get the sense that these men and women are from privileged backgrounds. Rather, they are what some refer to as the salt of the earth, the people that under normal circumstances serve as laborers, police officers, fire fighters, sales people, coaches, and educators.

But these are anything but normal circumstances. The uniformed men and women pretend to be fearless, but their eyes tell a different story. If you look deep into them, you can discern a mixture of disappointment and uncertainty.

They, for the most part, are on opposite ends of the age spectrum. At one end are the young ones, soldiers barely out of their teens. At the opposite end are men and women in their 40s and 50s, long past their prime fighting age. They were in the National Guard or reserves and had no plans for additional military service beyond being a weekend warrior.

Look on one side of the room and you’ll see a young Black woman crying uncontrollably while tightly embracing her father. Look in the other direction and observe a White male who appears to be in his 50s. He’s trying to assure his wife and kids that they should not worry about his safety.

At a time when no one seems to be discussing or thinking about politics, P.J., age 8, tugs at his mother’s right arm and says, “If George Bush wasn’t president, my Dad wouldn’t have to leave.” She lets the remark pass and successfully redirects P.J.’s attention to his father.

I keep asking myself: Why? Why are these lives and careers being interrupted? Why must people, such as Pete, who voluntarily served his country three decades ago, be involuntarily returned to the battlefield?

John Kerry and John Edwards promised at the Democratic convention in Boston that “hope is on the way.” These soldiers hope to be home in 18 months, if not sooner. For them, hope, even if it comes in November, will arrive too late.

As the soldiers line up to board the plane, different people find different ways to deal with the tension of the moment. There is a woman – dressed in red, white and blue – who stares at the plane and clutches her American flag for more than an hour. Little boys mount the back of benches or play outside as their fathers strap on 40-pound, bulletproof field jackets.

Finally, after an hour of loading the troops, the loud, charted plane lumbers east to the end of a long runway flanked by blue lights, gradually increases its speed until it is off the ground and its nose points skyward. There is absolute silence. And it remains that way until the blinking red lights on the rear of the plane – an indication that this is a civilian aircraft – slowly fades from view. They are gone. And they won’t be returning soon.