# What percentage of the US population has served in the military? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 20, 2002, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-has-served-in-the-military/119981 "2002-07-20T16:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2002, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-has-served-in-the-military/119981/1 "2002-07-20T16:35:10Z")
It seems that often political campaigns will turn to ‘he lied about his military service’ type statements. If I wanted to run, I wouldn’t have this problem, as I have NO military service. How common is military service, and should it be considered an unofficial prerequisite for public office? Or could I make a good point on the campaign trail saying: “like most of the population of the United States, I have never been in the military”? ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2002, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-has-served-in-the-military/119981/2 "2002-07-20T17:26:50Z")
The U.S. 2000 census identified an adult civilian population of 201 million; of these, 25 million were “civilian veterans,” i.e. no longer on active duty. There are also 750,000 military personnel on active duty. Indeed, most Americans have never served. ---
**Author:** ![Yeah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/dbc845/32.png) [@Yeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeah)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-has-served-in-the-military/119981/3 "2002-07-21T19:24:41Z")
How about “What percentage of the US population has served in the military broken down by age, sex, race, ethnicity, religion, education, etc. ?” That would be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2002, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-us-population-has-served-in-the-military/119981/4 "2002-07-22T01:25:05Z")
**Yeah** , as a partial answer (ethnic and gender), I present to you the following. This [site](http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/popula.html) has 1999 census data as such: Blacks - 35.1M, 13% Hispanics - 31.7M, 11.7% Asian/Pacific Islanders - 10.9M, 4% Total Minority - 77.7M, 28.8% White (extrapolated) - 192.3M (71.2%) Total would be 270M This [site](http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/) has the breakdown of minorities in the Active Military Service in Sep 2000. I am counting Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Blacks - 272,818 (20.1%) Hispanics - 107,556 (7.9%) Other - 85,038 (6.3%) White (extrapolated) - 889,416 (65.6%) Total Minority - 465,412 (34.4%) Total Military- 1,354,828 (not, 750,000) Percentage of Ethnic Category that have served? Unknown, not enough data. Mucking about on this [site](http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet) tells you there are 25,054,402 Veterans out of the 200,952,788 Civilians over 18, or 12.5%. Of the people of Voting Age (and Miltary Age) in 1998, the breakdown is White - 83.7% (168,197,483) Black - 11.8% (23,712,429) Other - 4.5% (9,042,875) Hispanic (Hispanic may be any race) - 9.9% (19,894,326) Yes I know this does not add up, it is the Goverment) Percentage of Ethnic Category serving at any one time (People of Voting Age) Black - 272,818/23,712,429 (1.15%) Hispanic - 107,556/19,894,326 (0.54%) Other (take the leap with me) - 85,038/9,042,875 (0.94%) White - 889,416/168,197,483 (0.52%) Total - 1,354,828/200,952,788 (0.67%) If I wanted to take the snapshot of Active and Veteran presented here, 26,409,230 total, divided by the population over 18 presented here, 200,952,788, then 13.1% of the eligible population is or has been in the miltary. GENDER There are still 200,952,788 folks over 18, and 51.8% are female, 48.2% male. I would do more, but I’m tired. There were 199,650 females in the Active Armed Services as of Apr 2001, out of 1,354,828 folks, or 14.7% of the Armed Forces. 51.8% of 200,952,788 is 104,093,544 females 18 or over. 199,650 of them, or 0.19% were Active Duty. These snapshots were taken at different times of course, but I would bet the stats today are very similar to what is above.