The passing of the Greatest Generation
Approximately every three minutes a memory of World War IIits sights and sounds, its terrors and triumphsdisappears. Yielding to the inalterable process of aging, the men and women who fought and won the great conflict are now mostly in their 90s. They are dying quicklyat the rate of approximately 430 a day, according to US Veterans Administration figures.
Honoring the 20th-century veterans sacrifice before they pass from the scene is at the forefront of everything we do at The National WWII Museumfrom our exhibits, to oral histories, to the Museums $370 million expansion, a lasting tribute to the Greatest Generation.
Theres no time to lose, said Gordon H. Nick Mueller, President and CEO of the Museum. We want to be able to finish and dedicate our expansion while we still have members of the Greatest Generation to thank for their sacrifice and service to the nation and to show the world what they mean to the principle of freedom.
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/honor/wwii-veterans-statistics.html .
Source: Wikipedia
There were 16,112,566 members of the United States Armed Forces during
World War II. There were 291,557 battle deaths, 113,842 other deaths in service
(non-theater), and 670,846 non-mortal woundings. According to the
Department of Veterans Affairs, 697,806 American veterans from
the war are still alive as of 2016.
Source: Wikipedia