(CNN) -- Early Sunday, as the sun ascended to the winter sky, the very last American convoy made its way down the main highway that connects Iraq and Kuwait. The military called it its final "tactical road march." A series of 110 heavily armored, hulking trucks and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles carrying about 500 soldiers streamed slowly but steadily out of the combat zone. A few minutes before 8 a.m., the metal gate behind the last MRAP closed. With it came to an end a deadly and divisive war that lasted almost nine years, its enormous cost calculated in blood and billions.
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NEW: The withdrawal of U.S. troops stirs conflicting emotions on the streets of Baghdad
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About 500 U.S. soldiers cross into Kuwait, ending almost nine years of war in Iraq
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They are the last U.S. troops in the largest drawdown since the Vietnam War
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They make the journey south from Camp Adder, the U.S. base closest to Kuwaiti border
Sunday saw the end of the largest troop drawdown for the United States since @placeholder.
By Thursday, the day the United States formally ended its mission in Iraq with a flag-casing ceremony in @placeholder, under 1,000 people remained there.