As an outsider, in the last decade it's been really weird to watch the US public demand war while at the same time demanding that soldiers don't die. It just reinforces how distant people are from the idea of war.

Hell, the entire Vietnam War had less US dead than there were Allied dead in one day of the bloodiest battle in WWI. And after a decade of fighting, the US efforts in Iraq have less than 10% of the US deaths in Vietnam. Afghanistan less than 4%. And still the rhetoric is one of siege and difficult fighting. How soft and spoiled are the commentators who think war should involve no sacrifice at all; that effectively it should be like a video game?