Sixty-three percent of respondents approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, and 60 percent remain convinced it is a war worth fighting. And support for the war is even greater among those who have served longest in the combat zone: Two-thirds of combat vets say the war is worth fighting.

But the men and women in uniform are under no illusions about how long they will be fighting in Iraq; nearly half said they expect to be there more than five years.

In addition, despite the pressures of a wartime military, 87 percent said they’re satisfied with their jobs and, given the choice today, only 25 percent said they would leave the service.

Compared to last year, support for the war and job satisfaction remain essentially unchanged.

Most surprisingly, a year ago 77 percent said they thought the military was stretched too thin to be effective. This year that number shrank to 66 percent.

The findings are part of the annual Military Times Poll, which this year included 1,423 active-duty subscribers to Air Force Times, Army Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times.

The subscribers were randomly surveyed by mail in late November and early December.

Subscribers to the four papers tend to be older, higher in rank and more career-oriented than the military as a whole. The poll has a margin of error of 2.6 percent.

Among the poll’s other findings:

• 75 percent oppose drafting men into the military.

• 60 percent blame Congress for the shortage of body armor in the combat zone.

• Only 12 percent think civilian Pentagon policymakers should be held accountable for abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The support among the military for the Iraq war comes at a time when polls of the civilian population show a steady erosion of such support. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week, for example, 56 percent of Americans said the Iraq war is not worth fighting and 58 percent said they disapproved of the way Bush is handling the war.

But you won’t find many doubters in the military ranks.

Air Force 2nd Lt. Brianne Walker, 24, at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., said, “Weapons of mass destruction or not, [Bush] was doing what he had to do to protect the people. We were the only ones willing to step up and do it.”

Army Sgt. Johanna Matlock at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, said if the United States hadn’t gone to war in Iraq, “they would have come here. We’re fighting terrorists.”

Support for the war is strongest among those who have served the longest in the war zone. Two-thirds of those who have spent more than a year in the war zone say the United States should have gone to war, compared to 60 percent overall in the military sample.

The troops also are fully behind their commander in chief, giving him a 71 percent approval rating on overall handling of his job — compared with only 48 percent among civilians, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University and an expert on civil-military relations, says the poll shows that an “anticipated military ‘revolt’ was not coming to pass.”