The year is ending, and its final days brought the official end of the war in Iraq. In the beginning one of America’s longest wars looked like it might be conventional and brief.

It was neither. Almost nine years later we are counting the costs, human and financial. For the United States, World War II by contrast took four years.

Also: 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq

On Day One of the Iraq War, an embedded Orange County Register photographer was in one of the first vehicles attacking from Kuwait. On the home front, Register photographers have documented the cost and effect here in Orange County in the years since.

There have been homecomings, happy and mournful. Courage, honor and sacrifice have gone noticed and unnoticed. Camp Pendleton, one of the vital organs of the Marine Corps, has borne a heavy burden in casualties. In our communities, mothers left their children to go to war and babies were born while fathers served in Iraq.

In Iraq, suicide bombers and roadside bombs killed and injured more than bullets. Sunni and Shiite killed each other. Back home, Republicans and Democrats debated and tried to make sense of it all.

In this series, Register photographers document the war’s impact with their images and thoughts on the people of Orange County.