In 1969, Life magazine ran a feature that polarized America. They posted the pictures of 242 young men who had been killed in the span of a week in Vietnam.

The pages showed young men, some of them teenagers, either in their military uniforms or in yearbook photos. The story showed the human cost of the war. It was a direct counter to the Pentagon's reliance on kill-counts and ratios.

Prior to that, to show the war was being won, the military would harp on enemy body-counts as proof of victory. The argument was sold to Americans who wanted to remain convinced that the war was justifiable that even if we were losing hundreds of men a week, we were killing thousands of the enemy.

However, seeing faces of fallen soldiers in such a massive quantity did affect how Americans viewed kill counts. When you see past the number and see the faces of the dead you start to care less about those that we are killing and care more about those of ours that have been killed.

The same thing happened during World War II. Newspapers around the country would print the names of the dead along with the location of their deaths. The impact of seeing thousands of names printed in papers instead of a four-to-five-digit figure caused Americans to put immense pressure on Franklin Roosevelt and later Harry Truman to end the war as fast as possible.

This past week, Trump and his administration decided that kill counts are back and that deaths that make the president look bad don't actually count. The Pentagon decided it needed to reduce the number of killed in action from 18 back down to 14. Because these four brave Americans died during a cease-fire, they are not being counted as casualties of war. Even though Iran killed three of them and another was killed trying to disarm an Iranian drone, the Trump administration is now insisting they didn't die in the Iranian war.

Of course, when their bodies came home, Trump and company rushed to the chance to be photographed at their dignified transfer. I'll give him some credit, at least he didn't wear a tacky MAGA baseball hat this time. But with Trump, there is no bottom and he showed it by also posting to his Truth Social account that somehow this war is okay because we are not losing as many troops as we did in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or Korea.

I guess until there is a magic number to be hit of American war dead, we are supposed to think Trump is doing a great job. Or maybe deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan count more because he didn't start those conflicts. If any more troops are killed (and I hope to God they aren't any more casualties) will they also not count as dying in the war we are in, even though they are killed by the country we are in a war with?

Look, every politician uses military service members as props. You don't have to be a cynic to know that it is true. But it seems that we are in a new era of American politics where we are scrubbing names from casualty lists, not being upfront about injuries, and pretending that the war you started isn't a real war unless things are going well.

Trump has a history of disrespect toward the military. We all know about his comments about late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). We didn't care when he insulted a Gold Star mother. We claimed it was fake news when a decorated general accused Trump of calling the war dead "suckers and losers." We made excuses when his campaign clashed with Arlington Cemetery staff so that he could get in a campaign photo op while standing and smiling over a soldier's grave.

Every veteran was angry and distraught over the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, especially when an attack at the Abbey Gate killed 13 U.S. service members who were helping with Afghan evacuations. I was beyond furious with the Biden administration over those deaths. But I and other vets noticed that Republicans from the top on down seemed to focus only on those deaths. And they seemed pretty quiet on everyone else killed in Afghanistan over the 20-plus year conflict.

I guess getting into a forever war that kills thousands of Americans is okay, but ending it badly isn't? Or we have learned to focus only on the casualties that make our opponents look bad. There was no doubt President Joe Biden deserved criticism of his handling of the Afghan withdrawal. He might not have negotiated the deal, but he was the commander in chief at the time and it was his responsibility, including the casualties that happened during that time.

That responsibility is now Trump's. He seems to be shirking it, because it is making him look bad. Maybe the Pentagon will change course and add those names back. But the fact that they did this in the first place is a disgrace.

When I came home from Iraq, the 1st Marine Division had several Vietnam veterans host a Memorial Day cookout for us. I felt guilty. When one of them asked me about Iraq, I began with "Well it was nothing like what you went through." He stopped me and said, "Son, that isn't important. You went there and came home safe, that is all that matters."

Four Americans did not come home safe this past week. It breaks my heart that they didn't. But we as a people should make sure that their lives did matter. Whether we support this war or not, we can't allow politicians like Trump to pretend they didn't die in a war because it makes him look bad.

Joslin Joseph is a recipient of the Military Reporters and Editors award for Best Commentary-Opinion. A graduate of Harvard and Ohio State, he is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. He currently lives in Anaheim, Calif.

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