Actually Toad, perhaps you'd be interested in the following:
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
You probably already know, but this was written in 1917 by Wilfred Owen after his experiences in the trenches of WW1. He himself was killed in 1918.
The Horace quote was used as an anti-war slogan long before Vietnam.
By orginal point was asking whether it is "sweet and proper" to die for your country, considering the almost complete apathy towards your plight by 99% of your countrymen. The situation is soured further by the almost hysterical following generated by a celebrity's death and the 'appropiate emotional response' that is emphasised with it. Just look at Diana's death for another apt example.
RAM had a point, BTW.
