Share of U.S. Active-Duty Military Personnel · Colorado

## What this measures

Active-duty service members assigned to Colorado (us.state.co.active_duty_personnel) divided by DMDC's United States total (us.dmdc.active_duty_personnel), which also counts the territories and members whose state is unknown. Palanor's arithmetic on the Defense Manpower Data Center's quarterly reports. One reading each September from 2008 to 2012, then every quarter from September 2013.

## Why it matters

The share puts states on one scale and shows how concentrated the armed forces are: a handful of states host a large part of everyone on active duty in the U.S.

## How to read it

Percent of U.S. active duty. The shares of the fifty states and DC add up to a little under 100, because the territories and unknown locations are in the total.

## What it does not say

Location is where a member is assigned for duty, not where they live or are from, and the current report leaves out most people on temporary duty or deployed in support of contingency operations. Files through September 2017 were compiled by location with deployment records, and the report changed to assigned duty location from December 2017, so counts across that break are not fully comparable. DMDC did not publish active-duty totals for December 2022, March 2023 and June 2023 (the Army is "N/A"), so those quarters are missing. A state's count moves with base openings, closures and unit moves. It counts people, not spending.

## Source

Defense Manpower Data Center, "Military and Civilian Personnel by Service/Agency by State/Country" (quarterly location reports), active-duty total. Public information (dwp.dmdc.osd.mil). Share calculated by Palanor.