What we need is another George Creel.
Quote Originally Posted by George Creel
"I did not deny the need of a large measure of secrecy in connection with the war effort, but insisted that the desired results could be obtained without paying the heavy price of a censorship law. With America's youth sailing to fight in foreign lands, leaving families three thousand miles behind them, nothing was more vital than that the people's confidence in the news should not be impaired. Suspicious enough by reason of natural anxieties, a straight-out censorship would inevitably stir demoralizing fears in the heart of every father and mother and open the door to every variety of rumor."
...
"What the Government asks of the Press: Observe secrecy respect to troop movements, ship sailings, convoys, the number of expeditionary forces abroad, the location of bases, the laying of mine fields, information relating to antiaircraft defenses, shipbuilding, and government experiements in war materiel...their enforcement is a matter for the press itself"
...
"After the rules for voluntary censorship, the nexst step, obviously, was the fight for national unity. Here I proceeded on the theory that before a sound steadfast public opinion could be formed, it had to be informed. Not manipulated, not tricked, and not wheedled, but given every fact in the case. A free people were not children to be humored, cajoled, or lollipopped with half-truths for fear that the whole truth might frighten them. The war was not the war of the administration or the private enterprise of the General Staff, but the grim business of a whole people, and every man, woman, and child had to be given a feeling of partnership. What we did, therefore, was to put trained reporters in the War Department, the Navy, and every other agency connected with the war machine, and every day saw an honest, unvarnished report of progress to the people."

From Rebel At Large, Recollections of Fifty Crowded Years pgs 156-165
As for who volunteers for the Army, I don't think you can hand-wave away economics. Plenty of kids I knew in high school are in the armed forces for plenty of different reasons, including "I want language training and money for college." It's not mercenary, but there are definitely people for whom it is not "easier to get an equally paying governmental civil job or go to college."