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Troops from Fort Bragg will help execute President Obama's new war plan in Afghanistan.
The president unveiled his new strategy Friday morning by ordering an additional 4,000 troops, all from Fort Bragg, to head to Afghanistan on top of the 17,000 forces the president already ordered to deploy. All the troops will be there by this fall.
Some businesses in Fayetteville are concerned the deployment of Ft. Bragg's 82nd Airborne will hurt the local economy. Ed's Tire and Auto Service gets a lot of business from military families according to manager Bobby Ray Matthews Jr.
"It's going to be a tough blow to us," Matthews said. "We're really depending on the civilians to keep us going."
Matthews said the shop is seeing fewer cars per day already because of the economy.
"Right now with the way the economy is, people are only getting what needs to be done, the necessities to the car," Matthews said.
There are more than 6,000 soldiers from Fort Bragg overseas right now, but Kristie Lozano, Senior Vice President of Communications at the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce, said think about all of the soldiers returning to Fayetteville.
"It's kind of a double edged sword -- you've got soldiers leaving, but you also have them having more money to spend when they return," Lozano said.
Lozano said active duty military contributes about $2.3 billion a year in spending a year in the community. She said even with soldiers overseas, there's still money circulating in town if families stay.
"I know that the army and the community have been working very closely together to really try and bolster the programs that keep the spouses in the community because during the first Gulf War we lost quite a bit of the community," Lozano said.
Even if the economy does take a small hit family members of soldiers, like Lisa Paul whose son-in-law is a combat medic, are thinking about what another deployment means to them.
"I do not know if he will be going or not yet," Paul said. `"He's the father of two small children and they need him to be at home, and it's scary, it's scary to think about him leaving again."

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