According to Department of Defense documents and numerous other credible sources, between Oct. 7, 2001, and Oct. 31 of this year, there were 5,251 U.S. military personnel killed on the battlefields of the nation's two ongoing wars, 4,345 in Iraq and 906 in Afghanistan.
During the same eight-year period, 31,557 service members were wounded in Iraq, and 4,434 in Afghanistan. Add to that the 48,215 troops removed from the two war zones due to what Defense Department officials described as injury and disease, and the number of U.S. combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan totaled 89,457 at the start of this month.
But that figure only hints at a larger problem. A recent Rand Corp. report claims that already close to a half-million veterans of the nation's two current armed engagements have sought medical treatment from the Veterans Administration, 45 percent of whom are said to be suffering mental health conditions linked to the stress and horror of war. The report estimates that, of the 1.9 million service personnel deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, 370,000 have suffered mild to severe brain injuries, another 350,000 post traumatic stress disorder.
Linda Bilmers and Joseph Stiglitz, co-authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War," contend that providing long-term health care and disability benefits for veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars will cost U.S. taxpayers from $422 billion to $717 billion, the latter if the United States were to remain in the war zones for another eight years.
Such figures point to the hidden cost of America's two long-running wars, conflicts likely to approach, perhaps even exceed, the $3 trillion mark that Bilmes and Stiglitz have predicted, a considerable portion of it borrowed from our generous benefactors — the Chinese, Saudis, and South Koreans.
Unfortunately, all of this is something that most of us are not comfortable even thinking about. We can handle the speeches, parades, and so forth. But Veterans Day and the holidays roll around every year, it's off to the nation's shopping malls where, as one concerned writer put it, even red-white-and-blue Veterans Day sales proudly herald savings of 40 percent to 70 percent.
Never mind the staggering, ever-rising cost of war, the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate and failing infrastructure; the rising economic powers of the East; the battle weary, stressed to the breaking point, multiple-deployed GI; the Fort Hood shootings; the grieving families of those killed and maimed in combat; or the 133 military suicides this year alone.
We here on the home front seem grateful to Washington for shielding us from such disturbing matters and concerns.
Though, as our fading bumper stickers proclaim, we dearly love and support our troops, this thoughtful gesture on the part of the government allows us to deal with the stress of our own everyday civilian lives, such as which program to watch on television, "Gossip Girls" or "Biggest Loser."
Jim Munn, a regular Times' contributor, is the boys track and field coach at Gloucester High School.
