Although we hear the term Democracy used constantly in reference to the American form of government, the word does not appear anywhere in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution for the united States of America, two of it's founding documents. How could this be?  The answer of course, is that the U.S is not a democracy.  It is a republic.  This then begs the question...what's the difference?  The U.S government itself, defined these terms in it's 1928 Military Training Manual (2000-25).  The reason being that if the U.S government was going to send young Americans to war, they had better learn what they were fighting for.

The 1928 Military Training Manual was withdrawn from circulation.  Today young and old American soldiers are sent around the world to fight for democracy at the whim of presidents who have no constitutional authority to declare war.  Only congress has that power (Article 1, Clause 8).  The non-ideological nature and general lack of understanding by the military personnel, with regards to their own constitution, was such a concern in Vietnam that top soldiers such as Carl Miller were taken aside and taught the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Miller's biggest battle has been with the ignorance of his own people since the Vietnam War.

http://freenz.org/images/PDFs/larosa-democracy-or-republic-which is it.pdf