You are correct in saying our armed forces in Iraq are superior in many respects to those who fought in World War II. However, the United States military in the Second World War heavily relied on conscription to fill its ranks. The military draft during that war was the most universal and probably the fairest one in American history, certainly when compared with the wide loopholes in the Cold War/Vietnam era draft and the ability of wealthy men to buy their way out of the Union draft in the Civil War. With more effective public education, overall higher moral standards in American society, and a greater level of physical fitness due to a higher prevalence of heavy labor and fewer conveniences, it is likely that the average American male made a better soldier in 1941-45 than his counterpart would in 2005.
Be that as it may, the soldier in Iraq is not drawn from the lowest ranks of our society, as this educated fool contends. In fact, there seems to be a disposition among academics to think this of soldiers in every war. It reminds me of the stereotype of the athlete. of the dumb jock. People who do what they will not do, what they CANNOT do, must somehow be made to seem mentally inferior to them. I think of the sometime characterization of the British soldier in our Revolutionary War, who is depicted as men pressed into service from the slums of London. In fact most were men from the country--and volunteers. The same was true of the German mercenaries. Many from the ranks liked America so much they decided to settle her after the war. And they fit right in, more so than--Ironically, American Tories.