In America today, only around six percent of adults have served in the military — a drop of more than half from 1980 — and less than 1 percent of the American population are active-duty members of the U.S. 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.

But as a group, veterans have an outsized impact on all of our lives. According to the 2021 Veterans Civic Health Index, from the National Conference on Citizenship and others, vets are more likely to volunteer, vote, give to charity, trust their neighbors and work to fix problems in their communities. They also are more likely to work than non-vets.

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