“Yours has the suffering been,/ The memory shall be ours,” American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in “Decoration Day”, a poem to commemorate the national holiday known today as Memorial Day. Over the course of a year, around 4.4 million people pay tribute to the memory of our military dead by visiting the 131 American national cemeteries overseen by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the National Cemetery Administration (NCA).
These cemeteries, in addition to one national Veterans’ burial ground and 33 soldiers’ lots, are spread across 40 states and Puerto Rico. Oversees, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) maintains 25 permanent American military cemeteries in addition to 26 federal memorials, monuments, and markers located in 16 foreign countries, the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the British dependency of Gibraltar. The VA maintains approximately 3.4 million gravesites, while more than 218,000 individuals are buried or memorialized at ABMC sites. But given that only 16,962,000 living war veterans remain out of the 41,892,128 individuals who have served during wartime from the American Revolution in 1775 to Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1991, (once again, not counting veterans or casualties of the Global War on Terror, ongoing since 2001), the millions of names not emblazoned on national markers also ought not to be forgotten, nor their graves remain ignored.
In 2014, the VA marked a 244 percent increase in annual interments in its national cemeteries, as 125,185 of America’s uniformed sons and daughters were laid to rest there, as compared to the 36,400 similarly buried in 1973. According to the VA however, last year only 19 percent of the 566,000 veterans across the United States and Puerto Rico who passed away chose to be buried in a national or state Veterans cemetery.
The souls who are swelling the silent ranks today cut across numerous of America’s armed conflicts of the past several decades. While the last American WWI veteran, Frank Buckles, passed away in 2011, and one remaining child of Civil War veteran Mose Triplett still collects a pension from the VA, the VA estimates that 413 American WWII veterans die every day. Of the 5.7 million who served in the Armed Forces during the Korean War, less than 2.3 million remain; of the 8.7 million during the Vietnam War, almost 7.4 million remain. Post-Vietnam War era, the numbers of those who have served or who are currently serving has been drastically reduced, as a result of the move to an all-volunteer force. Of the 2.3 million who wore America’s uniform during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in 1990-1991, 2.2 million endure.
These numbers indicate a generational passing of the torch is underway in the veterans’ community, between the Korean and WWII generation and the Vietnam generation. This year, the median Vietnam veteran hits retirement age. And while the median age of veterans overall is 62, the median age of older veterans (aged 50 and over) is 67.7. This year, Gulf War-era veterans and Post-9/11 veterans—all veterans who served during the first Gulf War and after—will overtake Vietnam veterans as the largest segment of the veteran population, according to a recent study.
The changing population of the veterans’ community has profound implications for civil society as a whole, beyond simple logistics affecting the National Cemetery Administration. National stories as encountered in history textbooks are important, but they have a far different impact in the more impersonal written words than they do as employees, neighbors, and family members, as tangible witnesses to historic moments. As the living history entwined with the persons who were willing to give the “last, full measure of devotion” to their country grows gradually fainter, it is doubly pressing that we consciously recall their names, their memories, and the great contests they were a part of. They have fulfilled their duty—maintaining their memory is ours.
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