It's tough to break down what the 4,000 U.S. troops have been doing since the war against ISIS kicked off nearly two years ago.

Ask anyone in Washington right now about U.S. troops in Syria, and you'll get a whole swath of different answers.

There are boots on the ground, some say. They're in combat, they're nowhere near the frontline, they're losing in Syria, they're helping our allies, there's too few, there's too many, there's nowhere near enough.

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People have been trying to figure out just what the U.S. is doing on the ground against ISIS since President Obama first announced that U.S. soldiers would be going back to Iraq in 2014.

At the time, it was a small force of 400 to add to the protection of the U.S. Embassy. But that number has continued to climb over time with new missions being added on as the months passed.

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