World War II will soon transition from living memory to documented history, with VA projections from earlier this year estimating the last veterans may be gone within the next decade.
Even the youngest WWII veterans are approaching their 100th birthdays. By the mid-2030s, the last living American who fought at Pearl Harbor, D-Day or Okinawa will likely be gone, and history's deadliest and most defining conflict will transform from an event some can remember into something people can only study from secondhand sources.
The Department of Veterans Affairs counts approximately 45,418 WWII veterans still living—less than 0.5% of the 16.4 million Americans who served. As recently as 2023, roughly 131 veterans were passing away every day. That number is likely much lower now, but only because the overall numbers have decreased so much in recent years.
By 2036, VA projections estimate only 300 veterans will remain, and soon after, none.
A Transition America Has Faced Before
When U.S. Army veteran Frank Buckles died in February 2011 at age 110, World War I ceased to exist in living memory. Even after his 100th birthday, Buckles was able to describe the malnourished children he saw in France, the casualties on the front, or what it was like to drive an ambulance or a motorcycle during the war.
His death on Feb. 27, 2011, marks the day WWI became purely historical and the day it was no longer possible to ask a veteran about those experiences. America will soon face a similar date for World War II.
The decline has accelerated dramatically. By 2000, there were roughly 5 million WWII veterans still alive. In 2015, about 930,000 WWII veterans remained. By 2018, fewer than 500,000 were left. Today's figure represents a 95% decline in a decade. VA statistics project fewer than 8,000 will survive past 2030.

The Final Commemorations
The 80th anniversary commemorations this year likely represented one of the last major anniversaries when significant numbers of veterans will be present.
The Soaring Valor program, a partnership between American Airlines, the Gary Sinise Foundation and the National WWII Museum, took its final charter flight in September after a decade of flying veterans to New Orleans. Since 2015, the program honored more than 1,500 WWII veterans with over 30 flights, pairing them with high school students to pass on their stories to younger generations.
"Soaring Valor journeys are about honoring duty, sacrifice and a legacy of service," said Randy Stillinger, American Airlines' manager of veteran and military programs. "On each flight, generations came together in a moment that bridged past, present and future. These stories will continue to echo through history long after the final flight has landed."
Among those on the final flight was Gloria Kerzner, a 101-year-old Navy veteran who served in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service program. The foundation ended organized flights due to the shrinking number of veterans able to travel, though it will continue providing individual trips.

Wars exist as either documented history or as lived experience. A veteran's memory holds details no historian can recover once they are gone: how they felt before a beach landing, what jokes soldiers told to stay sane, how it felt to kill another human being for the first time.
"The latest numbers from the VA make the work we're doing more urgent than ever before," said Michael Bell, director of the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at the National WWII Museum. "Members of the generation that fought the war and prevailed will soon no longer be able to tell their own story."
Future students won't learn about the war from a grandfather who flew bombers over Germany or a neighbor who survived the Battle of the Bulge. They'll learn from textbooks and documentaries—technologies that preserve information but can't replicate the emotional weight of speaking with a veteran directly.
The Geographic Reality
California counts the most surviving veterans with 7,455, followed by Florida with 5,511 and Pennsylvania with 3,930. Wyoming and Vermont each have fewer than 100, while Alaska has no known WWII veterans. The concentration reflects both population patterns and where aging veterans chose to spend their final years, often in warmer climates or near medical facilities equipped to handle their needs.
Organizations such as the National WWII Museum and the Library of Congress work tirelessly to digitize oral histories before they vanish. The Library of Congress Veterans History Project has collected over 121,000 individual collections since 2000, encompassing audio and video interviews, photographs, letters, diaries and memoirs.
The National WWII Museum recently installed AI-powered digital displays programmed to answer questions based on recorded interviews with now-deceased veterans. The technology offers a substitute to speaking with living veterans—preserving information while offering the ability to simulate conversations based on pre-recorded interviews.
The Cultural Shift
World War II shaped modern America's global role, its military culture and its understanding of sacrifice and national purpose. It led to the creation of the GI Bill and transformed the VA into the institution as we know it today. Many of the veterans returned home to build our suburban neighborhoods or founded the very businesses and organizations that are still around today.
The men and women who fought that war built the institutions and values that have defined American life for 80 years.
The conflict fundamentally altered American foreign policy, established the nation as a global superpower and created the military-industrial complex that still dominates defense spending. Veterans brought home lessons about leadership, logistics, combined arms warfare and the psychological toll of combat that influenced every subsequent American military engagement.
World War II will soon join the Civil War, the Revolution, WWI and every previous conflict as historical events that exist only in videos, photographs, interviews, newspapers and collective cultural memory.

When Memory Becomes History
Future generations will continue to debate WWII's meaning and its legacy, but they will do so without access to anyone who was actually there.
Living witnesses correct errors in films and documentaries, challenge politicians who misuse the war in speeches, provide uncomfortable truths that challenge simplified narratives about heroism and sacrifice. Veterans remind Americans that war, even when necessary, comes with costs that persist long after victory.
When the last WWII veteran dies, America loses more than a generation. It loses the ability to look a survivor in the eye and ask "What was it really like?" The conflict will still exist in detailed historical records, in thousands of books, in films and museums. But it will exist only as something that happened to other people, in another time, for reasons that grow harder to understand with each passing year.
The veterans understood this. Many spent their final years sharing their stories, visiting schools, recording interviews, ensuring their experiences wouldn't be forgotten. Some, like those who participated in Soaring Valor, made final pilgrimages to museums built in their honor.
Although a few thousand veterans remain and organizations strive to preserve their stories, the day when that will no longer be possible is fast approaching.