Costs of U.S. wars linger for over 100 years
http://www.independentmail.com/news/2013/mar/19/costs-us-wars-linger-over-100-years/
Costs of U.S. wars linger for over 100 years
Mike Baker, Associated Press
Posted March 19, 2013 at 5:41 a.m., updated March 19, 2013 at 6:42 a.m.
OLYMPIA, Wash. If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.
An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans 148 years after the conflict ended.
At the 10 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, more than $40 billion a year are going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And those costs are rising rapidly.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said such expenses should remind the nation about war's long-lasting financial toll.