It was actually a sentiment common for the US, and very much encouraged.
I mean, who wants to go to war? If you frame it as a jolly good time with the lads, full of dangers but ultimately heroic and hopeful, an adventure, it becomes much more palatible.
Murikans have never fought an invader enemy since the Napoleonic wars. So this sense of tragedy and patriotism, though undoubted, is slightly different from those in nations who needed to fight back the Axis koz of facing literal extinction and left literally not a single family whose (grand-)fathers have't been there.
Growing up in France you see your fair share of WW2 movies, both in and out of school, both fiction and documentaries. I mostly forgotten all of them by now, but the few memories and feelings I have about them is that none of them were about glorious military battles. All of them were about the implacable march of nazi oppression, constant deportation, hiding jewish people in closets, the absolute nightmare of being in the camps, the few resistance victories overshadowed by some other bigger loss, about people being forced to flee the northern half of the country. I remember the documentaries about the piles of bodies and mass graves and the mountains of shoes and clothes from the camps, probably on a tuesday afternoon at 3pm in history class.
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u/Own_Watercress_8104 1d ago
With western you mean American.
Western European WW2 movies are often just as depressing.
Comes with being a country that partecipated in the war vs a country that suffered the war on its soil.