thepoliticalnotebook:

According to a survey conducted by Pew, 1 in 3 US veterans of the wars since 9/11 think that Iraq and Afghanistan have not been worth it.

  • Breaking it down by individual war, half of the polled veterans considered the war in Afghanistan to have been necessary and 44% said the same of the Iraq war. 
  • Six in ten of these veterans thought that we should be focusing less on foreign affairs and more on domestic issues.
  • Only 21% of them thought that the civilian public understood the issues faced by servicemembers.
  • 87% came down on the side of increased use of drones in warfare.
  • 82% were against re-institution of the draft.

Above is a chart detailing what servicemembers reported as being the rewards and the burdens of their military experiences and a word cloud of the words and phrases they chose to describe those same experiences.

Read the full research here. 

Photo Credits: Erik DeCastro/Reuters; Brennan Linsey/AP