(NYT10) NEW YORK -- May 29, 2005 -- VETERANS-NUMBERS -- A Vietnam veteran toses flowers into the East River following a Memorial Day ceremony at the New York Vietnam Veterans Memorial in lower Manhattan on Sunday, May 29, 2005. New York marks Memorial Day this year as home to more military veterans than any metropolitan area in the country. But, as in the rest of the country, their proportion of the total population is dwindling. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)