Opinion ID: 1239200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Tour of Duty and Mobility Characteristics of Military

Text: According to Census definitions, everybody enumerated in Alaska as of April 1, 1970 is a resident of the state and the place they were living and sleeping most of the time. Any numerical adjustment of the military figure would have to be justified on a modification of the Census definition of resident which included a time dimension. The Census reports provided indicators of the length of tour-of-duty of military personnel at different locations and different housing facilities, and relative mobility of military personnel compared with other Alaskans. The length of the tour of individual members of the Armed Forces is determined by official policy. Rotation policy is summarized by an officer of the Alaska Command in a review of the Department of Defense activities in Alaska in 1970 as follows: The number of military personnel and dependents changes in response to external forces (national political consideration, changes in international situation, defense technology, etc.), yet personal characteristics of the group remain relatively static, being determined by a selective and stable range of age, sex, and occupation patterns because of the practice of rotating personnel and dependents on a tour-of-duty basis. These tours are typically 35 months for personnel accompanied by their families in the Anchorage and Fairbanks areas, and 24 and 18 months respectively for unaccompanied personnel. Few curtailments are given, but many extensions are approved. The normal tour length for isolated installations is one year. Dependents are not allowed at isolated posts. [Emphasis added] [8] The members of the Armed Forces accompanied by families and having 35 month tours-of-duty would appear to qualify as potential resident Alaskans. Furthermore, the civilian dependents accompanying these personnel and sharing their residency characteristics are included in the civilian population base. The Census would list these dependents of military personnel as members of households. The remaining unaccompanied military personnel have shorter tours at Anchorage (24 months), Fairbanks (18 months) and isolated installations (12 months). These are listed by the Census as living in other group quarters. [9] Table 7 classifies members of the Armed Forces in 1970 by type of living quarters and by Census divisions and selected places. In combination with the above quoted summary of tour-of-duty policy, this tabulation would suggest that the maximum number of military who might be considered as nonresidents (on the basis of a strict time dimension) would be the 51.9% living in military barracks or on ships. This would be on the basis of a very loose definition of resident, and could clearly be challenged on more technical grounds. Another indicator of resident-orientation is found in Census statistics on population mobility. This is measured in terms of relative magnitude of the movement of the April 1, 1970 population five years of age and over from the place they resided in on April 1, 1965 (the same house, different house, different county in the same state, outside the state). The Census definition of migrant is a person who had a 1965 residence in a different county of the same state or a different state from which they resided on April 1, 1970. [10] This data is available for the population on the major military bases in Alaska and for the Census divisions. Table 8 summarizes for five bases for which data are published as related to all persons five years of age and older, with the comparable data for all other persons residing in the Census divisions in which the bases are located. This indicates that population on these bases was from two to three times as mobile as the remaining population of the Census divisions in which they are located, but it also indicates that between 25-30% of the population on these military bases have resided in Alaska for more than five years. The conclusions to be drawn are that all Alaskans exhibit a high degree of mobility, that members of the Armed Forces are more mobile than other Alaskans, but that also a significant proportion of members of the Armed Forces are relatively long-term residents of the State. The two sets of Census data analyzed indicate that on a tour-of-duty basis, approximately half the military population probably would be or had been short-term residents (for less than 24 months in Anchorage, 18 months in Fairbanks and 12 months in the Aleutians and elsewhere). On the other hand, according to mobility data, between 20-30% were long-term residents (five years or more). This would leave about 20% as intermediate-term residents (between two to four years). It is only within the group of short-term residents that any supportable nonresident group could be defined without more information about the subjective intent of members to take affirmative action to claim residency. Therefore, nonresident military will probably be something less than half the total.