Years later, waking from the consequences of the Great War during the Great Depression, with friends and family shot or mustard gassed to destruction, Americans began to realize that the warʼs victory was Pyrrhic, at best. Even so-called patriots began to wonder why it was deemed necessary to fight conflicts having little to do with a threat to American soil. Brigadier General Smedley Butler lectured to millions on why war was a racket. And a book called The Horror of It was published at the same time; its photographic record revealed the unacknowledged results of war propagandaʼs drumbeats.
