When it comes to veterans in residence, Alaska outranks the other 49 states, with one of every 10 folks living here being a military veteran, Alaska Economic Trends notes in its June issue.
Alaska’s high percentage of veterans, including those who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, is tied to the state’s military history, wrote Eddie Hunsinger, a state demographer with the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
During World War Two, the federal government established major military bases near Anchorage and Fairbanks, and built other facilities, including the Naval Air Station at Kodiak. Military presence peaked in 1943, when more than 150,000 personnel represented over 60 percent of the state’s population.
By 1950, about 25,000 military personnel remained, and then during the Korean War in the 1950s, the state’s military population rose to 50,000 troops. Just after statehood, the 1960 census counted 32,692 military personnel in Alaska, which accounted for 14 percent of the population. There were also 25,054 veterans, who made up 11 percent of the population that year. Most of them were veterans of World War Two or the Korean War, but another 1,406 of them had served in World War One. The last of the World War One veterans passed away after 1990.
By the 1970 census, Alaska had a growing number of Vietnam War veterans, who made up 22 percent of the state’s veteran population that year. Many more completed their service and settled in Alaska during the 1970s and 1980s. By 1990 nearly 30,000 Vietnam vets represented 43 percent of all Alaska veterans.
Those who served in the Gulf War in 1990 and up to 2001 accounted for 21 percent of Alaska veterans in 2000. Many of them went on to serve again in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s and 2010s.
While veterans tend to be older on average than most Alaskans, veterans in Alaska are younger than nationwide. And the percentage of women in veteran and active-duty populations has grown, from 7 percent in 1980 to 11 percent in 2000 to 13 percent from 2010 through 2014. Nationwide the percentage of women in that category was 8 percent from 2010 to 2014, up from 6 percent in 2000 and 4 percent in 1980.
Over 70 percent of Alaska’s veterans live in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna and Fairbanks North Star boroughs, which are home to major military basis.
Hunsinger also notes that Alaska veterans 25 and older are more likely to have attended college than non-veterans, and have a significantly higher income than non-veterans.
