I was stationed at the Pentagon on 9-11, and you might say I had a bird's-eye view of when the entire War on Terror began.

As I record this, President Biden has just finished bringing home all the remaining American

soldiers from Afghanistan.

He wanted America to be out of there before the 20th anniversary of 9-11, the event that precipitated

going there in the first place.

It brings to an end operation enduring freedom

the Afghanistan War, Operation Freedom Sentinel, the Afghanistan Support Mission,

Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Iraq War, and Operation New Dawn, the Iraq War transition.

There is still one operation ongoing in the Middle East.

Operation Inherent Resolved, the military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

We refer to all those operations combined as the War on Terrorism.

After 20 years, here's the bottom line. The longest war in American history by 10 years,

Vietnam, just over 7,000 U.S. soldiers and DOD civilians killed, approximately 53,000 U.S. soldiers and DoD. Subayons killed. Approximately 53,000 U.S. soldiers and

DoD. Civilians wounded in action. About 30,000 active duty personnel and war

veterans death by suicide.

The death of 325,000 local citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan.

And the American financial cost in dollars is north of 5.4 trillion.

Out of the 13 wars the U.S. has fought in its history, it ranks seventh in total

number of soldiers killed right between the original

revolutionary war with over 4,000 dead and the Mexican war with over 13,000 dead.

And after all of that, I'm not quite sure what we got for all of that blood and money spent.

But I will leave the question of whether or not that was a wise investment of our national treasure to another time.

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