As of 2024, there are just 66,143 living American veterans of World War II, according to the most recent data from the Department of Veterans Affairs. By 2036, it's projected that only around 300 will still be with us. Over 16 million people served in the Armed Forces during the war, meaning fewer than 1% are alive today. World War II is estimated to have taken the lives of 30-65 million people; to this date, the exact number of casualties remains unknown.
In September 1940, Congress sanctioned the Selective Training and Service Act, the first peacetime draft law in the nation's history. By then, most of Europe had been at war for a year. The legislation—the Burke-Wadsworth Act—required men ages 21 to 45 to sign up for conscription. If inducted, they were appointed to serve for one year. However, when the United States officially entered the war, conscription limits were removed, and service ran through the war's end.
Draftees' age was also lowered to 18 as the war developed, a change that ignited protests and a public campaign demanding that the government lower the statutory age to vote. (Decades later, amidst the Vietnam War, this would prove to be the premise for the 26th Amendment, ratified in 1971.)
Over 36.5 million draft cards were issued when the U.S. fought in World War II; 10.1 million men were inducted between 1940 and 1947, representing about 7.6% of the national population, according to estimates from the 1940 census. They joined 6 million volunteers in combat.
These days, of course, the draft is a distant memory for most, having ended in 1973. But amid rising tensions in the Middle East and the U.S. bombing Iran in June 2025, there are renewed concerns over the possibility of new mandatory military service. This idea has been floated by those close to President Trump. For now, however, the draft remains a thing of the past.
Sept. 16, 2025 will mark the 85th anniversary of the peacetime draft, so, in recognition, Stacker analyzed data quantifying draft numbers during World War II from multiple sources, including historical Census data, a report issued by the Selective Service System, and a WWII draft card project provided by Ancestry.com in association with the National Archives and Records Administration. Maine's Draft card data was unavailable; their draft cards were destroyed before being digitized. The number of inductees ranks states, territories, and Washington D.C. as a percentage of the total state population as estimated from the 1940 census.
