Kansas losing about 10 WWII veterans each day

? They once were the band of brothers, comrades in arms who fought tyranny to preserve a nation’s freedom.

Six decades later, those World War II veterans are growing fewer in number each day, and most Kansans now have no firsthand memory of those years.

At the post cemetery, tall shade trees stand as silent sentinels over the garden of gravestones the final resting place for many who may have been at such places as Anzio, Normandy, Midway or Iwo Jima.

Census figures show the number of World War II veterans in Kansas decreased 38 percent from 1990 to 2000, from 95,785 to 59,013.

That’s a decrease of 36,772 which averages to losing about 10 veterans each day. Nationally, it’s estimated 1,000 who served in that war die daily.

The 2000 figures also showed that 54,531 World War II veterans in Kansas hung up their uniforms after the war, and returned home to raise families, work jobs and try to live their American dream.

But another 3,414 of them were in uniform for the Korean War, and 1,168 more served during the Vietnam War.

The 2000 census showed 38,882 Kansans who were in the military during the Korean War, a 22 percent drop from 1990.

Chuck Yunker, state adjutant for the Kansas American Legion, said a lot was owed to World War II veterans, most of whom now are in their 70s and 80s.

“We do owe them our freedom,” Yunker said. “Not only did they save the world from tyranny, they came back and rebuilt the country to a status far better than we were before the Depression.”

At Fort Riley, soldiers almost on a daily basis provide the honor guards both on the post and throughout Kansas and Nebraska for funerals of those who served in the military.

“In the last five years, there’s been a steady increase in the amount of honors we have been asked to provide,” said Fort Riley spokeswoman Deb Skidmore.

Last year, Fort Riley participated in 1,043 funerals and this year, through August, the number was 858.

For each burial, 15 soldiers are dispatched to carry the casket, fire the 21-gun salute and present the folded American flag to family members.

At the post cemetery, there are about 4,000 gravesites with only eight empty plots left. In recent years, there were two burials per month now it’s up to seven.

A road inside the cemetery is being removed to provide 32 additional plots. Meanwhile, Skidmore said, efforts are under way to set up an additional cemetery on the Army post.

Someday, the World War II veterans will be just a memory of a conflict long ago and far away, just as it is now with those from World War I. Yunker said only two veterans from that war still were in Kansas.