Orders to Leave

I do not come straight from a military family, but my girlfriend does. Her father has been in the Air Force for twenty plus years now, and is currently in the reserves. I have been with her for over three years now, so I know all bout his military experience, and how much it affects their family. He is currently 54 years old, a father of two, and a grandfather of my two year old daughter Madison. Last August, he received orders stating that he would be deployed the day after Christmas. He could not discuss details abbout where he was going, just that it was a four month tour. My girlfriend and her family were completely distraught; how could a 54 year old man receive orders to go overseas. It was clear just from his expressions after that that he was not happy going over for a war theat he personally did not believe in. However, he knew his duties and was ready to accept the orders, his family was not. My girlfriend was very upset and was having trouble comprehending the idea of him leaving. Good news came in November when he found out that he would not be leaving due to a physical. A doctor determined that he needed to have hip replacement, and this is probably the only case in which you will find someone happy to have hip replacement. He had the surgery at Thanksgiving time, and when his group left to be sent overseas, he remained home. He never had to go, but can you believe they were going to send a 54 year old man over there. We are supposed to be decreasing troops, and instead they want to send grandfathers over there. Also, now that he is medically cleared again, he may receive orders to leave again. Ultimately it is not his decision to make.
From what I have seen in the news, I do not feel that this war is justified or necessary. I don't know if it is the information presented to me in the news, or my beliefs, but I jst feel that there is nothing we can do over there. I will always support the troops currently serving, but I will not support the government that put them there.
I will however be the first to admit, at the beginning of the war, I felt it was justified. I was like every other citizen in this country. We were brutally attacked in NYC, and we were led to believe from our government that Iraq had weapons capable of attacking us worse than 9/11. I felt that we succeeded in removing Saddam Hussein from power, but since then I have seen no progress. All of his followers still have their beliefs, and will always hate us, we just can't do anything about that. I believe that it is time to bring our troops home.