Veterans Day originated as "Armistice Day" on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor those who served in all American wars.
According to this release from the US Census Bureau:
There were 21.2 million military veterans in the United States in 2012.
- Of those, 1.6 million were females.
- About 11.3% of 2012 veterans were black. Additionally, 5.7 percent were Hispanic; 1.3 percent were Asian; 0.8 percent were American Indian or Alaska Native; 0.2 percent were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and 79.6 percent were non-Hispanic white.
- There were 9.6 million veterans age 65 and older in 2012. At the other end of the age spectrum, 1.8 million were younger than 35.
- Vietnam-era veterans numbered 7.4 million in 2012. Moreover, there were 5.4 million who served during the Gulf Wars (representing service from August 1990 to present); 1.6 million who served in World War II (1941-1945); 2.3 million who served in the Korean War (1950-1953); and 5.3 million who served in peacetime only.
- The number of veterans that served during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam era, totaled about 50,000.
- Three states were home to more than a million veterans in 2012: California (1.9 million), Texas (1.6 million) and Florida (1.6 million).
- The annual median income of veterans in 2012 was $36,264, compared with $26,278 for the population as a whole
- There were nearly 9 million veterans aged 18 to 64 in the labor force in 2012.
- About 3.6 million veterans had a service-connected disability rating in 2012. Of this number, 881,981 had a rating of 70 percent or higher. A "service-connected" disability is one that was a result of a disease or injury incurred or aggravated during active military service. Severity of one's disability is scaled from 0 to 100 percent, and eligibility for compensation depends on one's rating.
Below is a table showing a range of data about our region's veterans.
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