On Sunday, Iraq war will have lasted as long as WWII

The Iraq war is about to reach a benchmark that puts it on par with World War II by one measure: Sunday, it will have lasted the same number of days - 1,347 - that the United States fought the Axis.

That is where most similarities end, though.

World War II was fought with navies over two oceans and soldiers on three continents. Militaries faced each other in uniform. Cities were destroyed. No attempts were made to foster elections, build schools or repair economies until the war ended.

In Iraq, whose military was destroyed within weeks of the U.S.-led invasion, the conflict is of a much different nature.

"Guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency and civil war is what we're in the middle of now," says Nick Mueller, president and CEO of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. "The whole picture is a lot muddier" than trying to defeat Germany, Japan and Italy.

Nathaniel Haynes, 80, fought in World War II on the Pacific Ocean as a cook and gunner in the Navy. "You knew who you were fighting," Haynes says. "And when you were in an area, you stayed there until you cleared it."

The United States fielded 16 million men and women to fight that war; 54 million civilians and 292,131 U.S. troops were killed.

About 1.4 million U.S. troops have served in Iraq. More than 2,800 Americans have died. The Iraqi Health Ministry has estimated that as many as 150,000 Iraqi civilians, police and abductees have died.

"Nothing in world history compares to the level of destruction and death that happened in World War II," Mueller says.

Still, some things haven't changed. American troops fighting the Japanese encountered kamikaze airplane strikes on their ships and suicide bombers jumping out of caves. American troops in Iraq contend with car bomb attacks on their convoys and suicide bombers on foot attacking them on the street.

Close-quarter fighting is still just as deadly.

"When you're an infantryman down in the trenches, you've got an M-4, he's got an AK-47, and you're still throwing lead," Mueller says.