In 1944, after the in November 1943 Tarawa bloodbath where almost 1,000 Marines died in a 76 hour battle for an atoll smaller than New York's Central Park, there was a great dispute over whether or not to show the gruesome color film shot by combat cameramen of dead Marines floating in the lagoon of Betio, their bloated, rapidly decomposing corpses turning black in the hot equatorial sun and piled in ragged heaps on the beach. It was feared that the hideous sights would damage home front morale too much. The decision was made by President Roosevelt to release the film and trust that this would impress upon the public the gravity of the maelstrom that their sons were being flung into. The decision was correct. War bond sales skyrocketed after the release of the film, and war production soared as the American people realized that their support for the war effort would help to return their men with victory in hand that much sooner. While our forces in Iraq embody the same sort of heroism and devotion to duty as their predecessors, I wonder if the present day home front is made up of the same stern stuff as its antecedent. I certainly hope so and time will tell.
THE problem is that in WW2 our president did not refer to the enemy as a religion of Peace.