DAYTON - Republican Mitt Romney, campaigning for president in Ohio Saturday, said President Obama has failed to adequately explain the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
After Vicki Chura, 54, of Fairfield told Romney her daughter, who serves in Army's 82nd Airborne Division, has repeatedly expressed confusion about the role of the U.S. military in Afghanistan nearly a year after Osama bin Laden was killed, CBS News reported.
"Every e-mail, every time we Skype, we hear 'I want to come home now. There is no mission here. We have no definition of a mission,'" Chura said.
Romney said he found that "disturbing and hard to explain."

"If your daughter is not familiar with the mission that she's on, how in the world can the commander in chief sleep at night, knowing that we have soldiers in harm's way that don't know exactly, precisely, what it is that they're doing there?" he asked.

The former Massachusetts governor said he understands U.S. troops are in Afghanistan to help Afghan forces take responsibility for the country's security. However, he said, the United States cannot hand them their freedom "on a silver platter."

"They will have to fight for that, earn it, keep the Taliban from taking it away from them," he said "But we've given them that opportunity. We need to finish the job of passing it off to them, and bring our troops home as soon as humanly possible."

The approximately 90,000 U.S. troops are slated to be pulled out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Romney has criticized the Democratic president for making the withdrawal schedule public. (UPI)