Ten years after America began its war in Afghanistan, the decade can be measured by different yardsticks: Dollars. Deployments. Deaths.

Or maybe this striking fact: Some soldiers have childhood memories of when the fighting began.

A decade is longer than the time ground troops were in Vietnam, longer than the Revolutionary War (both eight years). The invasion of Afghanistan - launched about four weeks after the 9/11 attacks - introduced the nation to a new enemy, the Taliban, and a seemingly endless mission, the global war on terror.

For most of the decade, the war in Afghanistan was eclipsed by Iraq, where there were more troops, more deaths, more headlines. That situation has reversed in recent years as Afghanistan has captured the spotlight, with a surge in U.S. forces, a spike in violence and the killing of Osama bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan - which generated new debate about the rationale for the war.

While there are plans to wind down the war, the costs already have been staggering. Hundreds of billions of dollars. Thousands of U.S. troops injured and nearly 1,700 dead, not counting the deaths of Afghan civilians and U.S. coalition partners.

But no war can be reduced to numbers on a ledger. The real impact is measured in the widows left behind, the children who will never know fathers or mothers, the names of the fallen etched in marble memorials and a new generation of veterans with wounds, memories and lives forever changed.

THE DEPLOYED: Since the war began, more than 2.3 million troops have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, as of the end of July, according to military statistics. Of those, more than 977,000 have served more than one tour and about 300,000 have been deployed more than twice.

Maj. Jeff Pickler ticks off the years one by one: 2002, 2003, 2004 ... until he reaches 2009.

For parts of eight straight years, he was at war. Four tours in Afghanistan. One in Iraq. On his first, he met some Afghans in remote villages who didn't even know U.S. forces were there - or why. On his last, he spent a grueling 15 months facing an experienced, organized enemy and on average, more than three firefights a day.

A decade into the war, Pickler says he always expected a long haul.

"When people asked me what it was like when I was going back, I'd say, 'Hey, this is something that we're not going to fix immediately'," he says. "I began to understand this is a very, very complex battlefield ... and appreciate we've got our work cut out for us."

Pickler, a West Point graduate of the Class of 2001, was in gunnery class in Fort Sill, Okla., on 9/11. When the Pentagon was attacked, he rushed to call his father, who was director of the Army staff there; the elder Pickler was not injured.

As an Army Ranger for three tours, Pickler expected frequent deployments. He spent about three years away from home and didn't hold his first-born, Everett, until he was 5 months old.

Through it all, the 32-year-old soldier says he always leaned on his faith.

"I remember a couple of operations clearing out caves ... I'm literally crawling through with a pistol in my hand. I would stop and I would say a prayer," he recalls. "That's how I handled it."

Pickler's last tour - in rugged, mountainous northeastern Afghanistan - was the toughest. "You have soldiers fighting for their lives in just really, really austere conditions," he says. His battalion lost 26 soldiers.

Pickler faced family adjustments, too. His wife, Amy, had raised their son alone for a year. "She had become really independent and rightly so," he says. "I was trying to figure out how to be a dad without stepping on her toes."

But Amy also offered comforting reassurances. "She would say she wasn't sure if the husband who came back would be the same one who left," he says. "Over time, I'd ask 'What do you think?' and she'd always say, 'You're still you.'"

Now Pickler trains West Point cadets - some of whom will likely head to Afghanistan for a war entering its 11th year.

THE FALLEN: The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has jumped dramatically since 2009. As of Oct. 4, there were 1,682 deaths, according to an Associated Press count.

In Georgetown, Texas, there's a life-sized bronze statue of Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman.

In Fort Lewis, Wash., there's a cul-de-sac called Chapman Circle.

In Afghanistan, there's a base known as Camp Chapman.

Chapman, a 31-year-old career Special Forces soldier was the first American to die in Afghanistan from enemy fire. He was shot in January 2002 after meeting with tribal leaders near the Pakistan border.

In the years since, Chapman's parents, Will and Lynn, have honored their son in public memorials and mourned - and celebrated - him in private.

"Over time, the pain gets a little better, then a moment will strike you when it's as strong as it ever was ... and it's as if I just heard it," says Will Chapman, a retired Air Force officer. "The loss of a child leaves a hole that you can never fill."

The Chapmans remember their son's two sides: the tender father of two little ones who joyously danced with his 2-year-old daughter at his brother's wedding, and the strong, tough soldier who'd served in Panama, Haiti and Operation Desert Storm.

After the 9/11 attacks, Chapman "was one of the first to volunteer," his father recalls. "I think his attitude was 'If you're going to war over this ... they're not going to go without me.'"

Since then, Lynn Chapman has spent time reading about and trying to understand the history of Afghanistan. "It's a very complicated country," she says. "Once we've accomplished the mission and our country's safe, we need to leave."

Will Chapman says he's a little surprised the war has continued this long but notes that his son "died doing what he enjoyed doing and what he believed in. I think he would be vastly disappointed if we didn't follow through and complete the mission that they started."

THE WIDOWED: As of May, more than 2,900 women and men had been widowed in the war on terror. That includes combat and accidental deaths, those who've succumbed to wounds later and suicides in theater. About 50 are widowers.

A decade ago, Tara Fuerst sat in her Florida high school library watching televised images of the World Trade Center ablaze.

The next year, she was at boot camp with the Florida National Guard.

In 2003, she met the love of her life, Joe Fuerst, on a field exercise. She was shy, he was outgoing. She was a novice; he'd already been on active duty in Korea and Kosovo.

In March 2005, Joe and Tara became husband and wife. By July, they were in Afghanistan.

Eleven months later, she stood in a morgue in Kandahar, holding her husband one final time, kissing him goodbye. She was a widow at 22.

Five years have passed, but Tara's memories remain vivid, sometimes triggered by small things - the scent of Joe's cologne on someone else, the strains of one of his favorite country songs.

"He's always there," she says. "He never leaves my mind."

Though they were at separate bases in Afghanistan, they talked daily and saw one another frequently.

Tara was at her computer that day, monitoring convoys and hostile activities when a message popped up on her screen: A soldier had been shot in the leg.

Then she saw the battle roster number FU8132, and she panicked: It was Joe.

When the helicopter arrived, bringing the horrible news - Joe had been killed by a rocket-propelled grenade - she pounded her fists on a truck and fell to her knees, screaming and sobbing.

For two years, she could barely talk. She had nightmares and memory problems. She quit college, frustrated by students' complaints about boys and car troubles. It all seemed trivial.

In 2008, Tara attended a gathering of the American Widow Project, a support group of women with similar experiences, and she began to feel better. Her connection has become so strong that she plans to eventually leave her job with a government contractor and work for the group.

"After meeting them," she says, "I was able to say, it's OK to laugh, it's OK to have fun, there are days you can look ahead to ... and there's still a future."

WOUNDED IN ACTION: About 13,700 U.S. troops have been wounded in Afghanistan and the region as of Sept. 6. In the early part of the war - through 2005 - almost 700 troops were injured, according to military figures. But in the past four years, nearly 12,000 have been wounded.

Three years after returning from Afghanistan, Anthony Villarreal would return "in a heartbeat" if he could.

He knows, of course, that's impossible because of a 2008 IED attack in Afghanistan that left him with third-degree burns over nearly 70 percent of his body. His face is disfigured, his right hand gone, his left hand missing fingers.

He spent three months in a drug-induced coma at Brooke Army Medical Center. When Villarreal finally was able to walk, he stood before a hospital mirror, stunned by his reflection.

"I just broke down," he says. "I couldn't recognize myself."

His ears, much of his nose and his eyebrows were burned off. He would need skin grafts to replace his eyelids and rebuild his upper lip. Villarreal spent the next two years hospitalized, enduring about 30 surgeries.

At home in Lubbock, Texas, folks would stare when he was at the store. Some would approach him. He saw that as an opportunity. "I thought if people are so curious, why not tell them the story of what happened."

Villarreal, now a college student, says when some family and friends tell him 10 years of war is too long and it's time to leave, he points out all the troops have done - building schools, bridges, wells. "I like to tell people we're over there to help people and give them the things we have here," he says, "not just fight the bad guys."

WASHINGTON (AP) - One in three U.S. veterans of the post-9/11 military believes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting, and a majority think that after 10 years of combat America should be focusing less on foreign affairs and more on its own problems, according to an opinion survey released Wednesday.

The findings highlight a dilemma for the Obama administration and Congress as they struggle to shrink the government's huge budget deficits and reconsider defense priorities while trying to keep public support for remaining involved in Iraq and Afghanistan for the longer term.

Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and about 1,700 in Afghanistan. Combined war costs since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have topped $1 trillion.

The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization that studies attitudes and trends, called the study the first of its kind. The results were based on two surveys conducted between late July and mid-September. One polled 1,853 veterans, including 712 who had served in the military after 9/11 but are no longer on active duty. Of the 712 post-9/11 veterans, 336 served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The other polled 2,003 adults who had not served in the military.

Nearly half of post-9/11 veterans said deployments strained their relationship with their spouses, and a similar share reported problems with their children. On the other hand, 60 percent said they and their families benefited financially from having served abroad in a combat zone. Asked for a single word to describe their experiences, the war veterans offered a mixed picture: "rewarding," ''nightmare," ''eye opening," ''lousy."

There are about 98,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, where the conflict began with a U.S.-led invasion on Oct. 7, 2001.