FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. —Over the weekend, a widening gulf in America was exposed, as anti-war protesters marking the fourth anniversary of the war held marches across the nation, and were met in most places by smaller but vocal counter-demonstrations.

An estimated 10,000 people marched to the Pentagon on Saturday and large crowds turned out in New York and major west coast cities yesterday.

Wesley Loffert has two sons in the military and had a message for those who think American troops should be brought home from Iraq.

“You are encouraging the enemy by telling him if you kill enough Americans, they will leave. You have got to let the president and let the commanders do their job,” he said.

Mr. Loffert, a 73-year-old retired colonel and Vietnam veteran, lives in an immaculate, shuttered bungalow in Fayetteville, the sort of modest town that has borne the brunt of the 3,218 American casualties suffered since American and British forces entered Iraq at dawn on March 20, 2003.

The North Carolina town is steeped in military culture. It lies adjacent to Fort Bragg, home to the 82nd Airborne Division and the Special Forces and the first base to provide fighting men, for World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

Almost every family in the town’s population of 120,000 has someone currently or formerly in the military.

Unlike the anti-Vietnam protests of 40 years ago, homecoming soldiers are not being targeted now, but the Iraq conflict, for all the defiance of places like Fayetteville, is undeniably more unpopular.

It has already cost the Republicans control of Congress in last November’s midterm elections and may well hand victory to a Democrat in next year’s presidential election.

Before then, the president, who as commander-in-chief gave the order for war and has recently approved a further 26,000 troops to be sent to Iraq, faces a mounting confrontation with the Democrats over proposals to scale down the number of combat troops.

For Maxine Crockett, all the talk about reductions and refocusing the mission in Iraq is too late. On January 12, 2004, her husband Ricky, a staff sergeant in the 19th Airborne Corps, was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He was 37 and had already passed the 20 years in the Army needed for a pension.

“He stayed on because he loved his job,” said Mrs. Crockett at the home that she shares with her 17-year-old daughter.

“I lost my husband and I don’t want anyone else to go through that. I don’t know what we are doing over there. Show me a legitimate reason, and I might feel differently, but often I find people who are saying troops should stay haven’t lost anyone over there.”