Military Employment and Spatial Mobility across the Life Course

People who join the U.S. military enter an institution in motion. They are required to relocate for basic training, education specifi c to their military occupational assignments, and postings to military bases across the county and around the globe. This typically means a long-distance move every two to three years. In earlier generations, this level of spatial mobility primarily aff ected active-duty service members, who tended to be unmarried men. However, in the All-Volunteer Force era, this rapid migration tempo increasingly impacts spouses and children as well. Additionally, a nascent body of work suggests that those who have a history of U.S. military employmentveterans-exhibit migration patterns across their working lives and into retirement that diff erentiate them from the civilian population.