The New Lost Generation
When the war is over, when the troops are finally home and reunited with their families, when the dead have been buried and the wounded cared for — then comes the reckoning. Sometimes it happens quickly, with the terrible cost of war weighed against the tyrants silenced, rebellions crushed, or populations rescued. Sometimes the reckoning takes longer, after the parades are over, flags furled and cased, subjects quietly changed. But no matter the form, the reckoning always comes. And after Washington’s current military campaigns, it will be a heavy one indeed. Nine years, more than $1 trillion, at least 5,600 dead and 43,000 wounded. These are the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts — the ones we can tally.

Less visible, but no less important, is that these wars are creating a new version of what writer Gertrude Stein called une génération perdue, a lost generation, analogous to the shellshocked men who returned home after the horrors of World War I. Many soldiers coming home today have struggled to reintegrate into civilian society, their mental wounds running deeper than any bone or flesh cuts ever could. And the country and the military will be changed by their return.

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