Bexar County Ranks Highest in Military Deaths Since 9/11

A recent study found that Bexar County ranks first in military death rates, likely due to the high number of military service members in San Antonio.
Axios, an online news media company, released data showing 6,940 U.S. military service members have died since 9/11. Nearly 60 of those service members were from Bexar County. The county, with a population of 1.9 million, has the highest rate of military deaths among counties with over one million people.

These numbers might seem alarming, but state demographer Lloyd Potter said it is not as dire as it appears.

"San Antonio has a higher percentage of our population that are in the military, which means we have more people who are at risk than other places that would have a smaller number or population in the military," said Potter, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "You would expect for our rate to be higher because we have a higher percentage of our population at risk."

Potter said few conclusions can be drawn from the study except that the places with higher rates of death likely have higher concentrations of their population in the military.

"For each county, if you had an estimate of the number of people in the military and use that as your denominator, my guess is that it would look a lot more even in terms of the rates," Potter said. "You wouldn't see so much variation."

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