Some costs can't be measured
In all the talk about Iraq and Afghanistan and whether the West is "winning" there and what price we are willing to pay a lot of things go unmentioned. People on both sides are willing to admit that bad things happen to those we send to fight. That people die is a given in most discussions. That people lose limbs and suffer catastrophic wounds and end up with permanent brain damage from massive head injuries is often, but not always overlooked. Those are the physical costs.
What we rarely hear about is the long term cost in broken families, broken spirits and broken lives paid by both sides. If you are one of the many armchair generals, chickenhawks and REMFs who are debating how "we can still win" or why it is dishonorable to "cut and run" and especially if you are one of death's cheerleaders, the type that say "soldiers sign up to die for their country so lets send them off to do so -- to make an omlette you have to break some eggs." --- go read the Galloping Beaver and Pretty Shaved Ape over at Canadian Cynic. And then go sit in the corner, shut up and be ashamed of yourself.