| Popular culture has helped shape, in part, Americans' perceptions about American service members, the armed forces, and the nature of war. While popular culture has rarely directly reflected public attitudes toward service members, the military services, or war, it echoes, exaggerates, amplifies, and magnifies various aspects of them. From 1945 through 1970, Americans accepted militarism in the sense that the public generally accepted a need for a large standing military, the necessity of a peacetime draft, and the value of military preparedness. In concert with this, there were many glorified and idealized images of service members, the military services, and war in popular culture. Yet, Americans also remained uneasy about some of these developments, particularly the rise of nuclear technology and the threat of nuclear war. Anti-militarist images and themes persisted alongside the idealized images. Americans praised military values such as loyalty, sacrifice, bravery, and dedication to duty on the one hand and embraced individualism, imagination, and self-reliance on the other. Recruiting advertising emphasized the idealized images of service members, and it reflected the same social and cultural values that informed popular culture. Although recruiting advertising and popular culture presented many idealized images of service members, the individual military services, and war, the public's attitudes toward the military never matched these overly positive images. |
