Lack of armor sign of the times in Iraq

Why hasn’t the country mobilized like it did for WWII?
By Tom Costello, Correspondent, NBC News
Updated: 7:49 p.m. ET Dec. 9, 2004

Sixty years ago, America was engaged in a war of survival: facing enemies in Europe and Asia. With 16 million Americans under arms, the country came together — sacrificing for sons, brothers and fathers fighting half a world away.

'Store shelves were empty as families rationed butter, meat, even gasoline. Meanwhile, the nation's industrial complex churned out war machinery at a rate never seen before.

"Franklin Roosevelt declared America the arsenal of democracy, meaning that if you are going to go to war, in the Pacific and Europe, then you've got to keep your troops armed properly," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

But the war in Iraq is not World War II. Instead of an Army of draftees, today it’s an Army of volunteers and reservists doing the fighting. And they're still showing the ingenuity so characteristic of the American GI — searching through desert junkyards for scraps of metal to bolt onto their Humvees for added protection.

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