Those that were ours, but never ours again."

For two and a half years the American press specialized on the terror
aspect of the European hell. Every sensational, exceptional fact was
not only chronicled, but widely circulated. The bodily and mental
havoc that can be wrought by shell fire was exaggerated out of all
proportion to reality. Photographs, almost criminal in type, were
published to illustrate the brutal expression of men who had taken
part in bayonet charges. Lies were spread broadcast by supposedly
reputable persons, stating how soldiers had to be maddened with
drugs or alcohol before they would go over the top. Much of what was
recorded was calculated to stagger the imagination and intimidate the
heart. The reason for this was that the supposed eye-witnesses rarely
saw what they recorded. They had usually never been within ten miles
of the front, for only combatants are allowed in the line. They
brought civilian minds, undisciplined to the conquest of fear, to
their task; they never for one instant guessed the truly spiritual
exaltation which gives wings to the soul of the man who fights in a
just cause. Squalor, depravity, brutalisation, death--moral, mental
and physical deformity were the rewards which the American public
learned the fighting man gained in the trenches. They heard very
little of the capacity for heroism, the eagerness for sacrifice, the
gallant self-effacement which having honor for a companion taught.
And yet, despite this frantic portrayal of terror, America decided
for war. Her National Guard and Volunteers rolled up in millions,
clamouring to cross the three thousand miles of water that they might
place their lives in jeopardy. They were no more urged by motives of
self-interest than were the men who enlisted in Kitchener's mob. It
wasn't the threat to their national security that brought them; it
was the lure of an ideal--the fine white knightliness of men whose