The facts: President Barack Obama announced troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year.

Our opinion: The removal of troops does not remove our presence, and future leaders from our generation will need to take up the slack. We should be prepared.

President Barack Obama announced Friday that by the end of December, the remaining U.S . troops stationed in Iraq would be brought home. While some see this as an obvious political stunt to aid his re-election campaign, this act should be seen for the merits of it, rather than for its motives—the troops are coming home.

Many students on campus have friends or family members who were deployed to Iraq. When they have returned, some have welcomed them home with joy, others with tears in their eyes. When President George W. Bush deployed troops to Afghanistan and then to Iraq, no one could envision the impact this conflict would have on our country.

Now, eight long years later, the troops are finally being brought home and the end of this war is at hand—or so we think. Many believe this war was not necessary, but only an overreaction to the attacks on September 11. The U.S . military presence in Iraq will not cease, however. We will remain in Iraq to ensure its peoples’ freedom, as well as our own.

Is this truly the right way to go about it, though? Will our generation be able to salvage something from this foreign policy disaster?

Master Officer John Walls, a current Raleigh Police Department police officer, discussed the differences between the war in Iraq when he went in 2003 and then again in 2004.

In 2003 Walls was in Iraq when the U.S . liberated the country, and said people were excited to be liberated from Saddam Hussein’s oppressive rule.

However, in 2004 when the U.S . failed to secure the borders in Iraq and insurgents took over, Walls said it was a totally different war. He describes the experience as “not how it was meant to be,” claiming, “this wasn’t the war I left in 2003.”

While this war is officially over, according to the current administration, the end is much farther off. Students of all majors will one day be in positions to influence our country’s foreign relations with the Middle East.

Members of the ROTC at N.C . State will be going to those places, strongly influencing how we deal with these situations. Broken relationships with other nations can be mended; however, our generation will be the one to do it.

Obama may be doing this solely to ensure his re-election in 2012. If his renewed bid for office succeeds, so be it. It is merely another four years; however, by then our future leaders will wield greater influence, helping them to deal with the aftermath of the Iraq War. Let us hope through awareness, knowledge and understanding, we may cultivate such leaders who will help our country out of the mess their predecessors got it in.