Denver ? They are angry and disillusioned, frustrated and full of doubt. This war is not going the way they hoped it would.

They are wives and husbands of the 129th Army Reserves Combat Transportation Company, stationed in Kansas, and they are terrified for spouses who are conducting missions in Iraq.

A month ago, these family members launched a “bring our soldiers home” petition drive when, with no advance notice, the 129th Company’s tour of duty was extended.

Today, after a string of recent suicide bombings in Iraq, they stand with a growing number of military families who are convinced that the war is going awry and who think the American public isn’t getting a straight story on the conflict.

Cherie Block, 29, could barely contain herself while watching President Bush’s news conference Tuesday from her home in Sac City, Iowa, especially when he insisted the vast majority of Iraqis are with Americans, not against them.

“Look at everything that’s going on there this week,” Block said, “And (Bush) still has this perfect picture in his head that they want us there. To me, they’re already against us.

“Either he doesn’t really understand what’s going on, or he’s not telling it the way it really is,” said Block, whose husband Wallace is a sergeant with the 129th Company.

Around the country other military families are increasingly voicing concerns over the war, some through organizations such as Military Families Speak Out, a Massachusetts group that claims support from about 1,000 families nationwide. Some marched in protests against the war in Washington, D.C., last weekend.

While many of these families are adamantly anti-war, others embrace the administration’s rationale for going to war in Iraq, while criticizing its conduct in the postwar period.

Among them is Trisha Leonard, 27, of De Soto, Kan., who declined to name her husband, a captain in the 129th Company Army Reserves. “I think taking out Saddam’s regime was a good move. But there is no postwar plan or exit strategy. It’s a mess.”

To be sure, the vast majority of military families support the war, at least in public. They don’t want their wives and husbands, sons or daughters to return home to a country that has adopted a negative view of the conflict, like that faced by soldiers who came home from Vietnam.

But overwhelmingly, families are against a massive pullout of troops that would leave Iraq destabilized and vulnerable. The U.S. has to finish what it has begun, or risk an even greater surge of terrorism, they believe.