Eye On Illinois: Awareness is easy compared to proper care every day of the year

Today is Veterans Day, which used to be an opportunity to ask readers barreling toward Christmas to pause to remember more than just Thanksgiving.With a resurgence in programming and observances in schools and communities, it seems awareness isn’t a significant concern. Whether we properly care for people who served the country the other 364 days a year is a different issue.According to CensusReporter.org, which formats data from the federal bureau, the current estimate is that Illinois is home to 452,391 veterans, about 4.5% of overall population. Of those, 40,388 are women. The numbers show we’ve lost 7,178 since 2025 and the veterans’ share of state population is down 0.2%. Nationwide, the figure is 15.7 million veterans and 5.9% of the adult population.As elsewhere, in Illinois World War II veterans are the smallest subgroup, about 2,415, with fewer than 16,000 having served in Korea, more than 154,000 in Vietnam, more than 97,000 in the Middle East in the 1990s and 115,000 since 2