Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, Brian Balogh on the history of controversial wars [audio 52min]

Critics of the war in Iraq often compare it – rightly or wrongly – to Vietnam. But there's no disputing that, like Vietnam, the current war has split the nation down the middle. It's enough to make one yearn for earlier times, when the nation united against a common enemy. Or did it? This hour of"BackStory" is about what happens on the home front when America goes to war. Interviewing a former Florida National Guard staff sergeant who served in the Iraq war and then served a prison term for going AWOL in protest against the war, as well as Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization author Nicholson Baker and retired three-star Marine lieutenant general Paul Van Riper, renowned U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf and Brian Balogh ask some tough questions: Was the Greatest Generation all on board with WWII? Have any American wars not been controversial? Does popular support always wane as wars drag on?