Tonight's news headlines I can guarantee will carry the grim reminder of the cost of the war in Iraq. Just as news organizations highlighted when 1,000 troops died in Iraq, 2,000 died and 3,000 died now they will highlight another well-rounded number that 4,000 have died in just over five years of combat in the Middle East.

Imagine if you will, the modern media's coverage if they had observed other famous battles in our nation's history.

Aug. 16, 1780

CAMDEN, SC -- In other news tonight, the Army of the Republic led by Major General Horatio Gates suffered an overwhelming defeat at the hand of Major General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina today. Union forces suffered 1,050 killed, wounded and captured at the hands of the British Army, which suffered roughly 330 casualties.

NOTE: The following September Lord Cornwallis surrendered his forces to General George Washington at the siege of Yorktown.

July 3rd, 1863

GETTYSBURG -- General George Meade's victory over General Robert E. Lee's Confederate forces at Gettysburg has proved to be one of the costliest battles of the Civil War, with 23,049 Union and 28,063 Confederate soldiers losing their lives in the three day battle. Our sources reveal that there are additional grumblings about Gen. Meade's lackluster efforts in pursuing the retreating Army of Northern Virginia forces from the field of battle.

Some in Congress are calling for a Congressional hearing on Gen. Meade's battlefield performance ...

NOTE: While the war raged on for two more years, the Confederacy never recovered from its losses at Gettysburg.

June 26, 1918

BELLEAU WOOD, FRANCE -- A forest in France is safely in Allied hands tonight, but the cost proved high for American forces as a combined US Army - Marine Corps force has secured the Belleau Wood, suffering more than 1,800 killed in action, one of the single costliest struggles for our doughboys serving over there.

On the first day of the battle on June 6 the Marine Corps forces suffered their highest casualty rates from any single battle they've participated in for any war they have fought in since their inception during the Revolutionary War ...

NOTE: The Belleau Wood was a key piece of ground that was located some 50 miles west of Paris. The failure of the Army - Marine forces in defending it would have caused a break in the front lines the Germans could have exploited to capture Paris. The success in the Allied forces in defending the wood likely changed the outcome of the First World War.

June 6, 1944

NORMANDY, FRANCE -- American forces have landed on European soil today and while reports are still sketchy we can confirm that the invasion appears to have floundered, with US troops suffering more than 6,000 casualties on a strip of Normandy beaches military planners are calling Omaha and Utah. General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself had prepared a message accepting full responsibility for the failures of our forces ...

NOTE: It's true that Gen. Eisenhower had prepared a message that confirmed the D-Day invasion had failed and he accepted responsibility for its failure. It was a message never released since the invasion, while costly, ultimately succeeded in opening up the long-anticipated second front in Europe, leading to Germany's downfall and surrender the following May.

If today's media had covered these past conflicts the way they do today with Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom, I wonder if the results ultimately would have been the same?

Would media coverage have fanned the flames of public opinion in such a way to have caused a shift in domestic or foreign policy that could have led to consequences we dare not contemplate?