Check the information the DoD was giving the Presidents, democrats and republicans. It's surprising the amount of info isn't given to presidents regarding DoD's "injured" and "dead"
Plus the DoD strategy wasn't to conquer but to repel. you can only do that so long without going in and fucking kicking ass and taking names. Thats why WW2 was balls out, we weren't repelling Germany we went in and killed eevryone we could.