In my neck of the woods there are many Eastern Europeans, and you quickly realize they have a very different take on “The Great Crusade” than Americans learn in school.
They lived through the consequences.
You said: "...they have a very different take on “The Great Crusade” than Americans learn in school..."
Can you elaborate on that for me? Are you speaking of the sentiment: "...“the war served a generation of Britons and Americans as a myth which enshrined their essential purity, a parable of good and evil...”?