Deconstructing the “Warrior Caste:” The Beliefs and Backgrounds of Senior Military Elites

MSgt (Join to see) I am sure that some of the data from DoD is unintentionally misleading, but in most cases is not necessarily the fault of the DoD. Take your instance for an example, my question to you would be - What was used as your 'Home of Record' when you signed up? Did you use or inadvertently use your enlistment location as your HOR? And could that have also been because of income tax advantages for you? I have seen and also participated in a number of like surveys throughout my time in service and found that it ends up being skewed because of the information used and provided by the individual to the service. Would you be surprised if for example that Texas 'supposedly' has a significant representation in the military as a whole? You shouldn't be, because all too many claim Texas as 'Home of Record' because of the fact that that state has no Income Tax. Florida may even come in as a close second because of the same reason. Why do you think that there are so many people from New York and New Jersey live in Florida after 'retirement?' Some of these studies do take those factors into consideration. Do not forget about the number of people born in states with a significant military presence that do not claim those states as their HOR, or of those that were born OCONUS.
But getting back to your point of he data set issues, when you take all of those factors into consideration, I would bet that it came up with some of the same conclusions that similar studies in the late 60s and early 70s did, and that a significant number of people that end up being career service members come from the southern tier of states and or areas with a significant military population, and due to those factors a significant number also are part of a military type family.

I agree. The DoD is not at fault with the HOR data at all. If you can give yourself a tax advantage take it! Maybe I will become one of those snow birds in my retirement too! I agree that the areas that are under represented would continue to be under represented and other areas would show higher representation but the effect might be muted slightly. I also liked the chart in one of the other links showing service members as a percentage of population. That takes out the effect of large vs small population states when looking for how represented a state is FOR ITS SIZE in the military. The buisness insider link I provided above chart 4 of 23 shows this.

MSgt (Join to see) - Take a look at that chart again. It actually supports my contention. One thing that the chart label left out was Georgia when it stated Maine and Florida about being overrepresented. But you can also take in the case of Maine, it is not too big of a surprise when you factor in that their are or were bases located there that few people take into consideration and that it is a prime maritime state as well, so factor in Navy/MC, Coast Guard, and last but not least the Merchant Marine. And let us not forget that Maine also had the largest SAC base at one time, that closed in the 90s.
What initially surprised me about one of the results of these types of studies is about my own home state of Kansas; and that is how many Kansans join either the Navy or MC and how many return after ETS or retirement. I have several family members that fall into that category.

Good point SGT Eric Knutson . And an interesting component of the concept of a "warrior caste". How many of us know fellow servicemembers who have had previous generations in their families serve? How many of us know fellow servicemembers who are the first ones in their family to serve? Thanks for the comment!

CDR (Join to see) - well, Sir, I do happen to know many people in the multigenerational catagory because I happen to be one, for my family (direct line) we have an unbroken line of service (Military / Law Enforcement) going back at least to the 1600's for both here in America and in Norway our homeland. So I grew up with many of them, and most of us chose a different path than our Sires to try to get out from their shadows (good or bad).