Yes, and that made them liars in "a good cause". There is some strange impulse to hide the nature of war from civilians, to protect them from the truth as if one were protecting them from flying debris -- one of the reasons why Vietnam was so powerful was that there was a temporary lifting of the veil that led to the more open depiction of war with which we are blessed nowadays (yes, it is a blessing). I believe it was only in late 1944 that Life magazine started showing dead Americans in its war coverage. And the rest of it was ridiculously airbrushed and cheaply heroic in the "cause". We seem to have entered a new era of cheap heroism plus violence, however: so perhaps the blessing is a mixed one.

yours, Peter T.