This year, July 27 marks the 65th year since the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement.
The anniversary was marked in a special way this year, as North Korea handed over the remains of at least 50 service members believed to be U.S. troops who were killed during the Korean War.
The repatriation took place Friday, and the remains have reportedly left North Korea and will most likely land at Osan Air Base in South Korea and then be identified in Hawaii.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released information about Korean War veterans:
Sixty-five years after the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, there are 1.7 million Korean War veterans living in the United States and Puerto Rico.
The armistice was signed in July 1953 but Congress extended the period of involvement for veterans benefits to January 1955. Almost 6 million men and women served during the Korean War era where U.S. involvement began in July 1950.
The median age of Korean War veterans is 84 years and nearly all are men (97.4 percent). While large states like California, Florida and Texas have the highest number of Korean War veterans, Puerto Rico has the highest percentage of all veterans who served in the Korean War (18.5 percent), and Alaska has the lowest (3.0 percent).
A higher percentage of Korean War veterans (39.2 percent) use VA health care and a lower percentage have a service-connected disability (13.6 percent), compared with all other veterans (34.5 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively).
Approximately 5 percent of Korean War veterans also served in World War II, while about 10 percent of Korean War veterans went on to serve during the Vietnam Era.
