A new opinion survey says one in three U.S. veterans of the post-9/11 military believes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not worth fighting. Most of the vets polled by the Pew Research Center also think that after 10 years of combat America should be focusing less on foreign affairs and more on its own problems.
The results of the survey are based on two polls -- one of 1,853 veterans and one of 2,003 adults who had not served in the military.
Nearly half of post-9/11 veterans say deployments have strained their relationship with their spouses, and a similar share report problems with their children.
On the other hand, 60 percent say they and their families have benefited financially from having served abroad in a combat zone.
And asked for a single word to describe their experiences, the war veterans offer a mixed picture, calling them: "rewarding," "nightmare," "eye opening," "lousy."
Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and nearly 1,700 in Afghanistan. Combined war costs since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have topped $1 trillion.
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