US Iraq Pullout Nears End As Obama Meets Troops

The US government says its military withdrawal from Iraq is all but complete.

President Barack Obama is in Fort Bragg in North Carolina, welcoming home the troops, one in a series of events marking the end of America's military adventure in Iraq.

While the US celebrates its soldiers' return in time for Christmas, hundreds of towns across the country are remembering those who died in Iraq.

Almost 4,500 soldiers will not be coming home.

Sky News visited one corner of America that has sacrificed more than its fair share.

A 50-mile stretch of Pennsylvania around the town of Hollidaysburg has lost a dozen men.

Staff Sergeant Danny Lightner was killed by an IED in Ramadi province in 2005, leaving behind a mother and four sisters.

"He was the best person you met in your whole life", one of them, Shonda Seilhammer, told Sky News.

The family, she says, will have mixed emotions watching the troops coming home.

"It's kind of bittersweet. Of course I'm happy for the family members that they won't have to go through something like we have.

"That's wonderful but then I sort of think 'well he could have been coming home now', maybe a little bit of jealousy because he doesn't get to come home".

Danny took on the role of father figure at a young age in his family when his father died in car accident. Shonda says Danny's death has been devastating:

"It's unreal. We'll never get over this. It's not like someone just dies. It's your brother. You think you're going to call them when you have your babies. You're not supposed to lose a sibling like that."

It is one family tragedy out of almost four and a half thousand in America and many more in Iraq.

Hollidaysburg Mayor Joe Dodson showed Sky News the new Patriots Park he has worked to create to remember the fallen of this war and America's past military actions.

The withdrawal he says "can't happen soon enough for me".

He echoes the doubts and concerns of many about what was achieved in this war.

"Personally I don't think we should have gone into Iraq at all. We never found the weapons of mass destruction. Were they there and he took them out before that? I don't know that. But I think we lost a lot of lives and I don't think we should have been there."

The US government says the last troops will leave Iraq in the next few days while America counts the cost and assesses what was achieved by their sacrifice.