It's not just dollars and cents. It's wear and tear, and immense human costs. We've been redlining our military for too long, troops and their families are exhausted from multiple deployments, spread too thin. Materiel is wearing out, enlistments are dropping, and good men are leaving before retirement, taking vital skills with them. And of course, recruiting standards are falling in an effort to fill the gaps. The military is wearing itself out, not getting the rest and maintenance it needs to restore itself.

Besides, that money we would otherwise be squandering on the poor, the sick, our youth and the aged and on investment for rebuilding our infrastructure and our economy is rusting in the desert instead, or bleeding into the sand, not being recirculated into our economy. It's not just the dead and the injured, the interrupted lives and the destruction. And it's not just the money. War is a terrible waste at every level. Please try to retain that information.