It is so easy for leaders of governments to send their military forces into war, not fully realizing that the long range economic effect goes on way beyond their lifetime and for the next century and more!
Here we are, 149 years after the end of the Civil War, and we are paying a small pension to the daughter of a Civil War veteran who married a young woman in his old age, and the daughter from that marriage is now 84 years old!
While the last World War I veteran died in 2011, there are still 4,038 widows, sons and daughters who get a veterans’ pension or other payments from that war service.
Not many are aware that spouses, parents, and children of deceased veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan received $6.7 billion in 2013, based on financial need, any disabilities, and whether the veteran’s death wsas tied to military service.
And this does not include the costs of the war itself, or the care of the veterans. The final bill for Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated to be $4 trillion to $6 trillion dollars over the next century!
This is a commitment that must be met, but it is something which should sober leaders, and clearly has affected Barack Obama, who is doing his best to avoid future conflict, a mark of a true statesman! For that effort alone, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he won prematurely in 2009!