Crystal Kent was jolted over the weekend by news of US casualties and captured soldiers, signs that the armor of the US-led invasion of Iraq might be cracking.
"Now that you see POWs, it feels more real," Kent, 29, of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, said on Monday. "I didn't think we'd lose this many people -- it seems like we're not as strong as I thought we were."
The news of deaths and injuries sustained by US and British troops, images of Marines hunkered down in firefights, accounts of Iraqi guerrilla-style attacks and televised snippets of frightened American prisoners drove home the horrors of war for many.
"It doesn't appear to be as easy as the prewar rhetoric had led us to believe," said Diane Gilleland, 56, a Chicago education executive. "Since we're in it, I think we're going to have to push on through, but I am concerned."
A random sampling found Americans fearful, angry and even indignant at those who thought war would be easy.
"I have not been against the war and this has only made my stance a little more aggressive," said Scott Kimball, as he stopped in Louisville, Kentucky, to fill up his car with gas.
"War is hell. You can't say that the casualties were unexpected. But still it's hard to watch," said Debbie Mintor, a bank employee in Kansas City, Missouri.
"That's just a part of war, unfortunately. We had to know this going in -- war is not pretty," Carolyn Witten, 57, a visitor to Boston.
Few said they had changed their initial opinions about the war, but some had steeled themselves for a longer conflict.
"My customers say, `Let's go get him [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] and get it over with as soon as possible.' But it's been a little tougher than they expected it would be after the Gulf War," said Red Bullock, 67, a Cincinnati-area barber.
In contrast to the earlier war with Iraq that most Americans witnessed from an aerial perspective, or in the aftermath with images of Iraqi corpses, the current war can be viewed in real time with combat close at hand.
Images of wounded US soldiers carried off the battlefield obliterated scenarios of a seemingly sanitized conflict like the 1991 Gulf War, in which 293 US soldiers died.
"I can't believe anyone is surprised by the casualties," said Nicholas Anton of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin. "If anyone thought the Iraqis were going to be flag-waving and welcoming us, they were wrong. That crazy euphoria everyone had in the beginning was very short-lived, and now people have to deal with the consequences of a real war."
Public opinions polls released on Monday showed a growing proportion of Americans believed the war would not be as quick or as one-sided as some had expected, with more than half of respondents to an ABC News/Washington Post poll anticipating a significant number of US casualties.
Overall support for President George W. Bush and his decision to go to war remained strong, at nearly three in four of those in the ABC/Washington Post survey.
Willy Dean, a 66-year-old Detroit cab driver, said he knew the war would be difficult. "It's a small country but, hey, they weren't willing to give up that easy."
Mike Mandarino, a 45-year-old New Yorker, was inflamed by the television footage showing the US prisoners of war.
"Line 'em up, all the Iraqi POWs," he said. "Bang, bang, bang. We should make the whole area a parking lot and open a nice multiplex [movie theater] there."
"As far as the images of POWs, they show how barbaric these people are," said a Detroit shop owner, who gave his name only as Gus.
"When someone in your community is lost or becomes a POW, it changes your whole perspective," said Richard Dayoub, a travel agent in El Paso, Texas, near Fort Bliss, the base for some captured US soldiers. "Hearing about the POWs yesterday underscores what all of us recognize and not a lot of us discuss: It's dangerous to pursue armed conflict."
"Whatever sympathy the Iraqis may have had may have been lost" by exhibiting the POWs, said Juli Liebler, a police captain in East Lansing, Michigan.
Iraqi television on Monday showed two men it said were the crew of a downed Apache helicopter. The US military had earlier acknowledged losing one helicopter.
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