In Greenwood this morning, war preoccupied conversations at the breakfast table, in the streets and on the job.
Roy Hancock, looking up from reading accounts of the first shots fired in the Iraqi dawn, expressed his approval of the decision to engage Iraq's President Saddam Hussein.
"My opinion is he needs to be removed because he's posturing, and I believe he's fostering terrorists," said Hancock, a Greenwood salesman. "Terrorism is not something you just let sit around and wait for it to happen.
"Some people say diplomacy hasn't been exhausted, but I think it has."
Hosie Williams, a retiree from Greenwood, says he too has come to the conclusion that Saddam is a threat, but he isn't so sure about President Bush's decision to go to war. Williams said he thought the Iraqi crisis could have been resolved differently.
"I don't believe in killing," he said. "I wish they could settle it peacefully, not by killing because it really doesn't make sense. It's going to get a lot of our people killed and a lot of their people killed - and innocent people, too."
The danger of war outweighs the cause also for Johnny Hart, a J.J. Ferguson dump truck driver who was working on the Alluvian Hotel this morning. Hart fears the toll the conflict will take on both sides.
"It's a terrible thing," said Hart of Durant. "There are going to be a lot of casualties on both sides of this. The worst thing about it is it's going to be a lot of innocent people. And what good is going to come out of it?"
At the Cotton Patch restaurant, where customers usually linger to talk about various daily events, conversation about the war took place under an American flag that manager Becky Rouse hung before the fighting started.
Whatever the reason for war or the outcome, Rouse said she wants her clientele to know that the restaurant backs the cause. She has followed the lead of other eateries across the country, renaming French-termed items on the menu. Because of France's opposition to the U.S. military effort, two congressmen decided last week to replace any culinary affiliation they have with the country.
"Due to our customers, we changed to 'freedom fries' and 'freedom toast,'" said Rouse. "Most of these men served in one war or another. They support the president, and even if they didn't really want to go to war, they understand why we are."
Alberta Johnson, a schoolteacher from Inverness watched the news Wednesday until midnight and was listening to radio reports this morning. She is in favor of the war, although her sentiments were wary at first.
"I am supporting President Bush because I don't think Saddam is telling the truth," Johnson said in the McDonald's parking lot this morning. "I had been confused at first about what we're really fighting for, but I hope what needs to get resolved gets resolved."
