I was returned from my second deployment in Iraq in Mar 2006, I was honorably discharged from the Army a few months later. That deployment almost cost my marriage.

I used to be a proponent of staying in Iraq until the job was done, we broke it and we need to fix it. But last year I realized that our government is not willing to take the right courses of action to finish the job quickly and correctly.

With Iran and Syria happy to supply the insurgency, there really is no way we can accomplish this mission quickly without a willingness to take some kind of action against those two sovereign nations, diplomatic or otherwise. And the otherwise action is definitely out of the question. Both Syria and Iran know that we cannot afford another war right now. We don't have the man power and we are going deeper into debt with conflicts we are currently engaged in.

I think that leaving is a bad idea, don't get me wrong, but staying in Iraq is a lot worse. If we stay, our nation will lose more good men and women, and go much deeper into debt.

This is how I came to the conclusion that we need to leave Iraq. That action would be the lesser evil.

The Iraqi government is slow to act, indecisive, and lazy. When I heard last summer that their Congress took a month off, I was upset. They don't deserve a month off when they need to get their crap together.

I honestly don't believe that OUR Congress deserves a month off in August, but that's another can of worms.

I honestly think that it would take decades to instill the values that would allow Iraq to stand strong on its own.

I do not believe that the USA can afford the human and financial costs of a prolonged occupation of Iraq.

To the next president, make the tough choice, choose the lesser evil, get out of Iraq, raise taxes and pay off our debt to China and other nations. It's time for the USA to be free from other nations again.