Yes, but it wasn't to save lives for the sake of saving lives, to preserve combat power or because troops' lives are inherently valuable. The senior officer wanted operations to continue and wanted to prevent the American public from turning them off, whereas my perspective was (and still is): let the public weigh deaths vs. the mission, and if they want the mission to end, then so be it. From his perspective, though, the boss gave him a mission to do great things, and it was clear that he couldn't do those things if public opinion turned and operations ended.

Edited to add: I don't think most "influence operations" on Facebook and Twitter, as described in the article, are about hiding or distorting the truth either.