The Continuing Costs of Wars

Among U.S. wars’ lingering costs are disability payments and compensation to veterans’ families, which can continue decades after fighting ends. An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records, released in March, even found two current recipients of Civil War benefits. Vietnam war payments are still about $22 billion a year; World War II, $5 billion; World War I, $20 million, and the 1898 Spanish-American war, about $1,700.