Last Combat Troops Leave Iraq after 7 years, 5 months

In the pre-dawn hours this morning, the last American combat
brigade left Iraq, ending Operation Iraqi Freedom as trucks
rolled across the Kuwaiti border.

Some 50,000 American troops will stay behind to train Iraq
defense forces to take up the slack.

The war lasted almost 7 1/2 years for American troops,
during which 4,406 soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen
lost their lives and 38,000 suffered combat wounds.

As 145 of the homeward bound soldiers stepped through the

doors of Terminal D at D/FW Airport, President George W.

Bush and his wife Laura were there with their families to wel-

come them home.