15+ Ways to Honor Veterans on Memorial Day

More than 7,000 U.S. military members have died fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, a 20-year stretch of time that has included the longest wars in our nation’s history—so long, in fact, that for many Americans the conflicts have faded from memory.

That’s not surprising, really: In America today, only around seven percent of adults have served in the military—a drop of more than half from 1980—and less than .5 percent of the American population are active duty members of the armed forces. That means the chances are high that you can go through most days never encountering anyone who has volunteered to be troops on the ground wherever the United States has a military presence.