The Cost of War: More than the “Billions Spent on Guns and Bullets”

I have consistently supported publicly honoring our fallen heroes—with the consent of family members—when they touch American soil for the last time at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.

Much apprehension and controversy have surrounded this issue.

Finally, this spring, the Obama administration implemented a similar policy as we have at Arlington National Cemetery which allows the family to decide whether to allow media coverage.

The new policy permits the media to attend “dignified transfer” ceremonies with permission from the families and to pay the expenses of up to three relatives of a fallen hero to travel to Dover to watch their loved one come back home.

There still remained concerns and objections on the part of some organizations and individuals, fearing that media access and publicity would diminish the solemnity and dignity of the occasion.

In “A Fallen Hero Returns for All to See and Honor” and in “‘Dignified Transfer’ Ceremonies for Our Fallen Heroes,” I wrote how those concerns were tested when the first fallen hero, Air Force Staff Sergeant Phillip A. Myers who was killed by a makeshift bomb in Afghanistan, was welcomed home publicly under the new policy.

As I wrote at the time, “The ceremony was somber, solemn and dignified. It was broadcast on most networks. I watched it. It was moving. It was appropriate.” Most corroborated those views.

More recently, when the Afghanistan War claimed the lives of 18 Americans in one single week (15 soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents), President Obama was at the Dover tarmac at 4 a.m. to welcome our heroes home for the last time.

Of course, even on this most solemn and humane duty of a commander-in-chief, there was sniping by some. But Americans overwhelmingly appreciated the president’s respect for those who have already fallen in the Afghanistan War—especially knowing that this man will soon make a decision on whether to send more troops off to war, a decision that may result in so many, many more “dignified transfers” such as the one to which he wore witness that clear fall night at Dover.

On Veterans Day, the Los Angeles times published an article by a man who thought he knew the cost of combat.

He recommended plans to spend billions of dollars in Afghanistan from his desk at the Bush White House Office of Management and Budget. To him the cost of war was measured in “the billions spent on guns and bullets.“

After watching his friend’s flag-draped coffin come home at the Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport in Connecticut, this man, David S. Abraham, now “truly understands the price of war.”

In his article, Abraham writes:

For too long, that full accounting of war was hidden from our national emotional balance sheet. The media were prevented from showing the return of the dead; even families of the deceased were unable to make the trip to Dover Air Force Base to view their loved one’s arrival.

Watching my former roommate unloaded from a plane in a silver container brought an indescribable pain. But for family members and those close to the soldier, watching the arrival is an important step in coming to terms with the loss. The ritual, the simplicity, the slow process of salutes and patriotic symbolism offer an important modicum of comfort for what is one of the worst experiences life can provide. It brings home the reality of death, both physically and emotionally.

Abraham’s friend, Army Capt. Ben Sklaver, 32, “was killed in a suicide attack in what was the deadliest month for U.S. soldiers since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001. At the time, he was trying to meet with local leaders in a village outside Kandahar to see what infrastructure they needed. To those at home who see our troops strictly as combatants, this is not a traditional soldier’s role. But Afghanistan is a new type of war, and Ben was on the front line.”

Abraham goes on to commend the Obama administration’s decisions “to allow media coverage of returning coffins, to assist families of fallen soldiers to come to Dover and to attend a ceremony himself last month,” as they “are significant steps for us as a country to fully account for war. They highlight the total price of war — not just the more than $200 billion spent so far but also the thousands of lost futures both here and in Afghanistan.”

Abraham concludes:

What’s most disheartening this Veterans Day is that many of us, including some in government, are still too far removed to truly appreciate that our troops are engaged in battle daily. Maybe it is because the money we spend is too large, the costs too abstract or the fighting too far away from our daily lives to comprehend. I have no doubt that sentiment was true for many in southern Connecticut. That is, until Ben came home.

David S. Abraham is now a director at ClearWater Initiative.