President Obama’s latest announcement of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq was good news. The Iraq war is the second longest American war in history following Afghanistan. The U.S. has been at this war for 102 months thus far; much longer than the war time span of Vietnam, Korean, WWII, World War I and the Civil War.

America has sustained significant war damages in human lives and casualties in addition to loss of wealth. We lost roughly four thousand lives of young people and sustained approximately 40,000 war injuries with varying stages of disabilities.

The long term effects might be pervasive for medical care treatment of seriously injured veterans and loss of their income at market value. Of the $14+ trillion national debt of the United States, nearly one trillion dollars or 7.5% of that was the direct and explicit expense of the Iraq war.

But wars have implicit costs as well, including the loss of parents by young children and loss of family whose pains are carried for a life time. War damages are pervasive and multidimensional.