Indeed.
Naturally, my perspective on the world wars and what they say of America differs as well. The way I see it, we were war-weary from WWI and were content to sit by as what we knew of the holocaust proceeded and Europe was threatened with complete domination by evil fascists. We didn't put the chips down until Pearl Harbor, since we couldn't very well allow another nation to do that to us and we also couldn't ignore the other Axis powers. If Japan hadn't forced our hand, we very well may have sat it out. We certainly didn't jump in on our own accord in order to stop evil.
Of course, we naturally took all the praise thrown our way afterwards. Now, that's not to diminish the countless sacrifices made. It is, however, to point out a dissonance between the reason we entered and the reason we like to think we entered.
But, I suppose there is silver lining, if that's the right word to use (probably not). The people who actually fought the war were not the people who decided to sit it out. They were ordinary Americans, and there were plenty of volunteers. (As well as Americans who volunteered for allied powers before we were in it). They sacrificed, they accepted.