Opinion ID: 1239200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: Trends in Level and Distribution of Military Personnel

Text: Prior to the onset of World War II, the presence of the military in Alaska was limited to about 500 uniformed personnel scattered across the territory, engaged in maintaining an essentially civilian communications system and manning Fort Seward (the present day Port Chilkoot) to defend the United States boundary against possible military contest from Canada. Since World War II the military has been a dominant element in the Alaska economy and population. Only in the past decade did it decline both in absolute terms and relative to the total population. Table 4 summarizes the number of military personnel (Department of Defense and Coast Guard) reported by the United States Census in Alaska as of July 1 of each year from 1950-70. Immediately after the end of hostilities in World War II there was an out-movement of troops resulting in a drop from the 1943 high of 152,000 to a 1946 low of 19,000. The Cold War and Korean War resulted in an immediate reversal of this trend in 1947 building up annually to a new peak of 50,000 in 1952 which was maintained for six years. A shart drop occurred in 1958 to the levels which have been maintained throughout the 1970's with only minor variations. Table 5 compares the geographic distribution of military personnel in the 1950, 1960 and 1970 Census reports. The locational patterns over these two decades have been remarkably constant with the major concentrations in four centers together accounting for 91.2% of total military population in 1950, 87.1% in 1960 and 89.0% in 1970. Annual data for the decade of the 1960's by Census district further emphasize the stability of both the locational patterns and the levels of this population (Table 6). Directly associated with these uniformed personnel and sharing similar resident-nonresident characteristics are the civilian employees of the Department of Defense and the Coast Guard (averaging slightly more than 6,500 annually during the 1960's according to Alaska Department of Labor records), and the dependents of both groups (ranging from 40,600 in 1964 to 33,000 in 1970, according to Alaska Command records). Finally, a major part of construction and support service employment can be directly attributed to the military presence in Alaska. In spite of recent expansion of natural resource based industries, defense is still the most important part of Alaska's basic economy and is still its largest industry. The data summarized in Tables 4, 5 and 6 clearly demonstrate that military personnel in Alaska have been a significant and relatively stable element in the total population. The defense establishment has and continues to constitute Alaska's single most important economic element. Directly and indirectly associated with the uniformed personnel are a further significant group of civilians whose continuation as residents of Alaska is dependent upon the continued presence of the military personnel.