So… Some facts to counter your conjecture.

1) The overwhelming casualty ratios enjoyed by the US armed forces now vs. WWII are not a consequence of media participation, they are a consequence of the proliferation of the helicopter. Korea was a turning point in that if you weren't outright dead on the battlefield, you were likely to make it to a field hospital.

2) This, in turn, changed the way war was conducted - a dead soldier needs replacement but a wounded soldier is a logistical logjam. 5.56Nato, the round used in the M16/M4, was designed with maiming in mind, not killing. Whereas 30.06 and .30 carbine were designed with single-shot fatality in mind, 5.56 uses geometry and ballistics to get around Geneva Convention rules against hollow points and flechettes. It takes multiple hits from an M4 to accomplish the same lethality as a single hit from .30 carbine (or 7.62Warsaw, the round used in AK47/74/AKM, a weapon so prolific it's on the flag of Mozambique).

3) Which necessitated a colossal logistics pathway between the quartermaster and the ground troop. Vietnam-era troops carried 70lbs of gear; modern US soldiers carry 40-70. Since Vietnam, the only soldiers who are out for weeks are special forces; everyone else comes home at night. Which means that you can go through 8 mags of 20 rounds in a day and not give a crap; the ratio of bullets-to-fatalities during the Iraq War was 250,000:1.

4) So the actual "troops" - "war fighters" in your parlance - are now the equivalent of the "special forces" during Vietnam. Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan outnumber troops. No more KP duty - that's all Halliburton now. There were over 190,000 contractors in Iraq at the peak.

5) Which means you need to control your message. It was learned during Vietnam that showing coffins on TV is bad for civilian morale, so coffins came home from Iraq in a press blackout. It was learned during the Gulf War that "embedded" reporters say what you want them to say just for the honor of having them tag along, so war reporters that aren't embedded are treated as enemies.

So what you're left with for every grunt on the ground is four guys back on base, five contractors to feed and clothe them all, an incomprehensible mountain of ammo and carefully screened press coverage of everything he does. It might as well be reality TV. Meanwhile, the Red Menace is gone and the enemy we're left with fights much the same way he did in WWII - 80 rounds of 30 caliber carbine, one rifle, no support, no helicopters, rudimentary training, no resupply that he doesn't schlep in with him, no press. It's gotten so lop-sided that the US is looking for another caliber other than 5.56 because you have to shoot insurgents a dozen times to kill them - in Falludjah many troops picked up insurgent AK-47s because the bullet goes in and stops.

Is the media obnoxious about it? Of course they are. But the media is almost always wrong. Check a casualty count on a newspaper from Dec 7, 1941. They were all off by a factor of 10. A lot of the indignance associated with the August 2011 destruction of a Chinook was related to the following facts:

- It was shot down with US-made FIM-92C Stinger Missiles

- Provided to the Mujahedeen by US Senator Charlie Wilson

- Using tactics taught to them by the then-acting Undersecretary for Defense.

…biting the hand that feeds, as it were. Afghanistan in a nutshell...