How many veterans are in Congress? How are veterans distributed by political party?

This blog has discussed the military civilian divide a number of times. I've cited statistics showing that fewer Americans now are veterans than during most or all of the 20th century, and that Congressional representation follows the same pattern: about 25 percent of representatives are veterans, but the percentage was 75 percent just a few decades ago. The end of the draft, and the lack of major ground combat wars in recent years are a substantial part of this.

But the numbers matter more than simply for historical trend-tracking. A good democracy should not be too isolated from its military, for a number of reasons. When the leadership cannot understand the military, leaders might be more prone to misuse the military. For example, leaders might send soldiers off to war without the leaders having adequate understanding of the consequences. Military advisers and joint chiefs are insufficient. The public, the voters, should also understand the military, for similar reasons. Of course the military should not control the state, and we have civilian oversight for good reason. But note that in some countries where the military becomes aliented from the government, we sometimes see military coups. This is another reason to avoid a military civilian divide.

So the percentage of veterans in Congress has been noted (25), but how does that break down? Fortunately, a website called Vietvet.org has listed the veterans in the 111th congress. (The site also has a great tribute to Lewis B. Puller Jr., who became one of the many post-war casualties of the war in 1994 when he took his own life.) The site breaks Congressional members down by House and Senate, and by whether the member is a combat veteran. I sorted it further by political party, and this is what we have:

The House of Representatives has 94 veterans, which is about 22 percent of its members.* There are 15 combat vets, about 3 percent of all representatives.

The Senate has 26 veterans, 26 percent of the Senate. There are 7 combat vets.

Both houses, by political party:

25 percent of Congressional Republicans are veterans (61 out of 242).
20 percent of Congressional Democrats are veterans (59 out of 290).

3 percent of Congressional Republicans are combat veterans (7 out of 242).
5 percent of Congressional Democrats are combat veterans (15 out of 290).

So it's interesting that a greater percentage of Republicans are veterans (in general), but a greater percentage of Democrats are combat veterans.

Regarding the military civilian divide, I can't say much with these numbers, as I am not sure what percentage of the general public are veterans. It must depend considerably upon age.

Regarding political party membership of Congressional veterans, I am heartened to see that veteran-status is not a partisan phenomenon. It would be disconcerting for our republic if veterans were primarily in one party. (Political views of the active duty military are much debated, though I found that most Marines I served with were non-political. This interests me, but is beyond the scope of this post.) Also, the numbers here challenge the stereotype held by some that the GOP is the veterans' party.

*Total for the House is 434, total for the Senate is 99. Numbers come from Capitol.net. Each house had one vacancy at the time. If you divide by 435 or 100, however, the percentages do not change.