This generation’s veterans are more diverse than any other contingent America has shipped to war. Thirty-five percent are non-white, more than one in 10 are women and a quarter are now 40 years or older.

But much of the force remains homogeneous: Half are Southerners, two-thirds lack a college degree and almost six in 10 live in a non-urban area.

More than eight in 10 vets served at least one tour in Iraq or in support of that war. Of those deployed to Iraq, 47 percent were sent on two or more deployments, and 29 percent — more than a half-million service members — spent two years or more in the strife-torn country. By contrast, 29 percent of vets who deployed to Afghanistan had two or more tours, and 16 percent spent at least two years there.

The entire group of 2.6 million post-9/11 vets includes hundreds of thousands of troops who did not serve within the borders of Iraq or Afghanistan but who worked in support of operations in those nations from bases and ships in the Middle East and South Asia. Those deployments often were arduous and risky and involved separation from families. In tallying those who served, the Defense Department does not distinguish between them and those who walked on the soil of Iraq or Afghanistan.

More than 730,000 went as members of the reserves or National Guard, forcing them to place their civilian lives on hold for as long as a year, sometimes more than once. It was the largest use of both forces since World War II, greater even than during the Vietnam and Korean wars.

The vets hail from families where service in the military is tradition: More than four in 10 have fathers who were in the military, and half have at least one grandparent who was. Almost 40 percent say all or most of their friends have served in the military. By contrast, a national Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in December found that 32 percent of U.S. adults had “hardly any” or no friends who have been in the military.

Slightly more than half yearn for their time in the wars. Of them, almost two-thirds cited the bonds they forged with fellow military personnel. “It was a unique time,” said Kevin Ivey, a retired Army helicopter pilot who spent a year in Afghanistan starting in 2004. “I miss my crew, the folks I was with, the organization. You make lifelong friendships in war.”

Many vets see themselves as a cut above the rest of American society, as noble volunteers who stepped up to promote and protect U.S. interests while the rest of the nation went about its business as usual. Sixty-three percent think service members are more patriotic than those who are not in the military; 54 percent think the average member of the military has better moral and ethical values than the general civilian population.

Almost seven in 10 feel that the average American routinely misunderstands their experience, and slightly more than four in 10 believe the expressions of appreciation showered upon veterans — often at airports, bars and sporting events — are just saying what people want to hear. More than 1.4 million vets feel disconnected from civilian life.