No, it wasn’t popular, but then again we weren’t running around being the world’s police force either.
Back during the draft it actually took an act of congress to get involved in a war, not just done on a whim as today. (Does Libya, Bosnia, and soon to be Syria sound familiar?)
“we weren’t running around being the world’s police force”
Yes we were. I think Korea might have literally been referred to as a “police action.” Containment had more in common with policing the world. Japan attacked us largely because we slapped them for invading China and acting like we were the gatekeepers of the Pacific (ask yourself what out navy was found on Hawaii, anyway) . The Germans posed no direct threat to us, aside from to transatlantic shipping which was fine until it wasn’t, even though they declared war. We fought them twice more because they were supposedly guilty for starting it and were fighting it criminally.
You may be partially right about the congressional act part; I’d have to check Korea. But we haven’t declared war since WWII. Open-ended vague commitments held for Vietnam as much as for Iraq/Afghanistan.