(WSB Radio) -- Gov. Perdue is spending Veterans Days visiting with Georgia troops in Iraq.  It's his second visit to the war-torn country since 2005.

"I'm excited to be here at this time, obviously it's a much different scenario since we were here in '05.  The violence has gone down significantly," he told reporters via a conference call.

Perdue says moral is also high among the soldiers.

"All in all in the spirit and morale of our troops is palpable. They feel there is light at the end of the tunnel and they feel like they've made a difference," he says.

Perdue made the trip with the governors from Oregon, Wyoming, and Mississippi. He says upon his arrival Tuesday morning, he received briefings on the drawdown of troops and participated in a cookout which included Georgia soldiers.

Perdue says the trip was arranged by the Department of Defense after he raised concerns over the redeployment of the 48th Brigade of the Georgia National Guard.  He says troops were redeployed around the country and not in their training units.

"Not that I was trying to micromanage a deployed activated soldier, but I asked at that time to come see and talk to the soldiers and the Department of Defense was kind enough to begin to build a trip around that request," he tells WSB's Sandra Parrish.

While Perdue could not say if his trip includes a visit to Afghanistan , he admits his schedule includes some "gaps" before his next official stop in Dubai.

On Monday before leaving for Iraq, the governors received a briefing in Washington D.C. by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other Pentagon officials. They also visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center to meet with wounded soldiers.