Meeting with the wounded and the relatives of the dead might have eroded another leader’s commitment and convinced him to reverse course. But Bush took the opposite message—in large part because Hildi Halley was the exception. “The number of people that would really say we have to get out, it was a very, very, very small number of people,” said Hagin. “By far and away, the most prominent emotion was, they would sort of set their jaw and say, ‘Don’t let my son have died in vain.’ ” One mother of a slain soldier told Bush, “He did his job. Now you do yours.” For Bush, withdrawing troops before
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