America Needs To Care About Actual Wars As Much As War Movies

Over the holiday season, the new film “American Sniper” about legendary Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle broke box office records, earning a million dollars after playing in fewer than 10 theaters around the country. Yet, while Hollywood war movies may grip audiences nationwide, there is significantly less attention paid to the actual wars that the U.S. has been engaged in for more than a decade.

In USA Today’s list of its most-read articles of 2014, no stories about the war in Afghanistan, or the latest conflict in Iraq, broke the top ten. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon for Defense One writes, “It is time we grappled with America’s actual wars and their real-time, life and death consequences, once again with as much dedication as we line up to watch them play out on the big screen.”