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" In new segment on Special Report tonight called on the front lines. To try to get a sense how military personnel and their families. Perceive the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And to discuss the challenges they face. Joining us now man who has spent a lot of time taking the pulse of the US armed services. Fox News military analyst and historian and retired army major general Roberts -- and joins us tonight from San Antonio Texas general thanks for being here. -- general this was a very obviously deadly day in Afghanistan. We've talked before about how in the counterinsurgency. Effort when US troops move again. To these areas that are held by the enemies sometimes it's like stirring up a hornet's nest. Is that we're seeing here."

" That's exactly what we're seeing -- it's roughly analogous to what we saw during the early days of the surge in Iraq. -- ordered to take back the initiative from the enemy the US command is. More aggressive in its patrol again -- its operations in the field -- pushing forward more small units seeking to take on the enemy and in direct. Combat ended and the inevitable result of that sadly is going to be a spike in casualties. You know when you talk to military personnel both over in Afghanistan and here at home and also their families what is their concern their chief concern during this time. The families aren't concerned so much about the links of the deployments as they are about the uncertainty. Because for families live on on on planning their future and most of the family so I talk about say. What we wanna know is win our loved ones are going to be deployed. So that weekend. Plan ahead for the future. Yeah and the and the debate about whether to answer the requests from. -- general -- the crystal that's going on in the white house with President Obama how has that affected what what you're hearing out there for military camps. Then again it goes back to uncertainty what families are telling me is they want the administration to come up with a strategy to establish an in state. So that they can then have their units establish a deployment. Plan and a time plan so that they can build their lives around that."

" Yeah and to that point we received hundreds of emails many from military families every night one of them. Tim from Nebraska said the last two weeks have listened to your pundits speak on the war in Afghanistan as a father of 22 Marines -- gonna select and other sergeant. Between the two of them six tours in Iraq and Afghanistan I would like to say that their morale is shaken their trust of elected officials is right -- low. I goes on to say you need to quit asking the -- that's what all this -- decision shows -- start asking those with a stake in the fight the families of our servicemen and you may get decidedly. Better answer general your response to emails like that."

" Yeah out that's exactly right -- the families want to have some sense of certain date but there's a big difference between. What's happening in Afghanistan today and what was happening. In Iraq in 2006 remember back then. We had army divisions a marine regiment solve their second and third rotation what we face in the future are. Army and marine units that are all their fifth six and in some cases they're seventh rotation. So the families are telling me that. Tiny short they wanna get on with that they wanted to know what the in the state is they wanna know what the strategy is. So they can now bring this war to an end yeah it's a different military than we saw that in the Iraq War 34 years ago. It absolutely is. Then the troops are. Still dedicated the morale still high but let's face it after eight years of war we have units particularly ground units out there that are getting tired. General Bob scales joining us from Texas general thank you very much for being here thank you for it."