In the five years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, about 9,300 service members from Utah have deployed to the two combat zones, according to the Pentagon. That placed Utah 36th in per capita participation in the nation's ongoing wars.

And the Beehive State would have placed even lower - second to last, in fact - were it not for the contributions of the state's National Guard members and reservists, who have deployed to the wars at a slightly higher rate than the national average.

The comparatively low overall number of Utahns with "skin in the game," as Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has described the commitment of troops to war, doesn't surprise Anita Dancs, research director at the National Priorities Project.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan organization keeps tabs on the enlistment rates of young adults in the U.S. armed forces. And Utah regularly comes in last.

"I can only speculate, but the speculation that seems to make the most sense among people I've spoken to is the large proportion of the population that is Mormon, and young Latter-day Saints often go on a mission," Dancs said.

Missions typically begin for Mormon men at the age of 19 and last two years - a period in which many of their peers are contemplating military service.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims about 60 percent of Utahns. Support for the war in Iraq by Utah Mormons exceeds that among members of other religious beliefs by a 2-to-1 margin, according to a poll conducted in January by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Dancs said backing for the military, the president and the wars - Utah is among the top supporters of each, according to polls - might typically translate into higher enlistment rates. But she surmised that returned missionaries may have other priorities when they come home from their missions.

"When they come back they are older and they may have thought a little more about what they want to do with their lives," Dancs said.

Dancs' data - and that of the Department of Defense - stands against statements by political leaders who have claimed that Utah shoulders an unequally heavy burden in the military.

In 2004, for instance, the state Legislature unanimously passed a resolution claiming that "Utah leads all 50 states in the percentage of enlistments per capita."

Rep. J. Stewart Adams, a Layton Republican who sponsored the bill, said he's not sure how that language got into the bill, though he guessed that the legislative research staff may have confused National Guard enlistment rates with overall rates.

Among Utah politicians and military families, there has long been a sense that the state's reservists - including thousands who joined up after completing an LDS mission - pick up the slack for those who didn't join earlier.

Indeed, Utah reserve recruiters say they haven't had the same kinds of trouble signing up new troops as many other states. And Utah is among just six states which have deployed more reservists than active-duty warriors to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In late 2003, Sen. Orrin Hatch repeatedly told citizens and reporters that "Utah has deployed more reserve forces per capita than any other state," telling the Deseret Morning News that he didn't consider the statistic "an unfair burden but a great honor."

Hatch spokesman Jared Whitley said the senator got his information from the National Guard, and that he was only speaking about initial rounds of deployments in the so-called Global War on Terrorism.

But the contention appears to have become a lasting matter of conventional wisdom among many, including the Legislature, which repeated the claim in the same unanimously-passed 2004 resolution.

Pentagon officials say it is possible that Utah has, at one time or another, had a larger proportional representation of reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan than other states. But, they say, that has in no way been a constant.

Utah ranks 15th in reserve deployments since 2001 and, with about 700 reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan at this time, is 23rd among all states in current per capita reservist contribution to the wars.

South Dakota, where about one in every 275 citizens is a reservist who has been called into service in Iraq or Afghanistan, has sent the most reservists, per capita, to war, according to Defense Department records.

That's almost the same ratio at which Utah sends both reservists and active-duty service members to war.

Alaska has shouldered the greatest war burden. According to the Pentagon's figures, about one in every 30 Alaskans has fought in the wars.

And as might be grimly expected, South Dakota and Alaska are among the five states that have lost the most service members, per capita, in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon data, which tallies hometown information based on a service member's personnel file.

Utah's sacrifice in that somber computation is tied for last.

Dancs said it makes sense that a state that enlists fewer people into uniform also would send fewer troops to combat.

And she feels Americans should take note of such distinctions.

"It's important for us to understand who the people are who we are sending to war," she said. "We all ought to know who they are and where they are coming from."

mlaplante@sltrib.com