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In San Diego, homeport to Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers and a host of other Navy and Marine installations, the possibility of war certainly is on people's minds, said Town, 47.

"I think people are very heightened in their awareness. I'm not sure I would call it tension. It's more attention, because this is why we train and this is why we wear the uniform. We do the day-to-day operations in our hospitals and in our clinics to prepare ourselves and our staff to be able to take care of our sailors and Marines in times of war and other operations," she said.

"In the position I'm in, the recruiters bring potential military nurses to our command for tours and an opportunity to interview and ask questions about what it means to have a military career," Town said.

It was on one such tour of an East Coast base 23 years ago that she decided Navy medicine would be a good way to kick off her nursing career. "Part of it was the excitement of having the ability to serve my country, and part of it was my emancipation from small-town Iowa," she said. "But why we wear the uniform is attached to current events."

'Almost every patient is anxious'

Trudy Eggers, RN, is a 56-year-old assisted living case manager in Oklahoma City, and has extensive experience as a psychiatric nurse.

Today's events and the anxiety of uncertainty are constants around Oklahoma City, home of Tinker Air Force Base and nearby Fort Sill, Eggers said. "There's a lot of military personnel around here and a lot of lives are connected with the military in some way. Stress, that's just part of our lives."

Eggers said that each crisis survived makes some people stronger and more capable of problem-solving and handling anxiety. But for others, anxiety is cumulative. National Guard call-ups and terrorism warnings are like straws on the camel's back and each event is possibly the one that will break it. "Almost every psychiatric patient you have is anxious," Eggers said.

"I think by the nature of my work, my deal is calm reassurance. I'm not the kind of person who runs out and buys the plastic and duct tape to duct tape all my windows," she said, referring to preparedness advice issued-and later softened-by the Department of Homeland Security in its concern about chemical or biological attacks at home. "The chances of that saving your life are probably nil to none. I hate to say that, but it's true," Eggers said.

"A lot of people sometimes overreact, and I don't know that that's necessarily wrong," she said. "Right at this point, we're not in war. I think that you have to try to encourage people to be realistic. You can't live your whole life worrying that the Mideastern guy down the street is going to blow up your house.

"The situation is very volatile. Hopefully, we'll have a voice of reason and look at all the pros and cons: When we go to war, it doesn't just affect us. It's almost a global thing. Hopefully, there will be a lot of thought put into any kind of action."

'Why are we the ones going in?'

Nancy Alonso, RN, of Central Falls, R.I., worked as a float nurse in a hospital and with her physician husband before retiring. When The New York Times conducted a public opinion poll in February regarding Iraq and U.S. policy, Alonso, 66, was one of the voices.

"I don't have kids that are going to war," Alonso said, but she has children all over the world. For 26 years, she hosted exchange students, including an Arab from Tunisia who was living with her when President Anwar Sadat of Egypt was assassinated in 1981. She said exchange students opened her eyes to world politics and today's possibility of war is often a topic when she and friends gather.

In readings-Helen Caldecott's The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex and Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By, among others-Alonso said the question that keeps coming back to her regarding Iraq is "Why are we the ones who are going in?"

"I think if I had kids or grandchildren who were going to go, I would probably feel more threatened," she said. "My gut feeling is we're just going too fast. We need to be more universal. We need to be a globe. We need to be joined with rest of the world. I don't think we should be doing this alone."