Nearly 4 million veterans reside in rural (nonmetropolitan) America. They are a rapidly aging and increasingly diverse group of men and women who still comprise over 10 percent of rural adults despite consistently declining numbers.

Over a third of nonmetropolitan counties lost more than 10 percent of their population over the past 20 years through net outmigration. Poverty and low education account for the high net outmigration in some of these counties, but most are relatively prosperous. Their outmigration is related to...