A Washington Post article puts the projected cost of the "war" in Iraq at $3 trillion. But this is just the monetary cost of fighting the war. The human costs of this war are less tangible and possibly more daunting.
Two Newser articles: "Army Sets Out to Stop Recruiter Suicides" and Soldier Suicides Set Record discuss some of the emotional costs of this war. Vietnam veterans with whom I have worked say the emotional trauma from Iraq is going to be worse than Vietnam. Two reasons they cite? The soldiers in Vietnam had a tour to serve and were then sent home. In Iraq the soldiers are serving repeated tours and have no idea when or if they will be able to return home. Mentally, this is a vast difference. If you know you only have to last until a given point and are then home free (literally) you can endure a certain amount of suffering much better. If you have no idea when the suffering is ever going to end, this is a very hopeless and powerless feeling. The human mind does not deal with with the unknown. I would imagine that this - combined with the excruciating physical fatigure from repeated tours - plays a large role in the suicides. We can only take so much and the military is asking far more than any human can bear.
Vietnam vets also cite the issue of never knowing who your enemy is as one of the problems they faced in Vietnam and which they see soldiers struggling with in Iraq. The 15 year old Iraqi boy who was laughing and talking with you yesterday may have a bomb on him today. You cannot clearly identify who is on which side so you ever know whether you are safe or not. And women and children cannot be considered "safe". This war has no no clearly defined enemies, boundaries or rules and many of the norms of our culture (women, children and civilians are off limits and not to be harmed) cannot be honored in this war. This creates a great deal of distress of a human psyche.
All of these factors may partly explain why there is such a high degree of PTSD in Iraqi troops. To add insult to injury, soldiers with PTSD are not receiving adequate treatment and are left to wander about in society with their symptoms as discussed in this article by the New England Journal of Medicine. Untreated trauma symptoms can not only destroy the life of the patient, but his entire family. If you don't remember the effect PTSD had on our society with returning Vietnam vets, seattlepi.com's article, "The unseen cost of war: American minds" describes how it is affecting Iraqi vets.
And this does not address one of the most prevalent costs of the war which is the number of soldiers with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). This is discussed in more detail in another article on this site. This is a very serious injury that not only affects the life of the soldier but can seriously put people around him at risk.
The costs of this war will, in the long run, far exceed $3 trillion. I wonder if we will even be able to calculate the ultimate price we will pay.
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