[3,11] By the eighth decade of life, over 75% meet the aforementioned criteria, most commonly based on systolic elevation. In 2017, the AHA/ACC high blood pressure guideline recommended that the definition of HTN be lowered to 130/80 mm Hg or higher based on new clinical trial evidence of cardiovascular benefit from treatment to lower targets.[11] The implication of this recommendation is that an additional 14% of the adult United States (U.S.) population (or 31 million Americans) now meet the blood pressure criteria for HTN.[4] B. Hypertension in the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs Populations Estimates of HTN prevalence among active duty military are limited and undoubtedly skewed by policies that exclude recruitment of individuals who already have cardiovascular risk factors such as HTN, obesity, and diabetes. However, it was reported in 2008 that 13% of active duty military had HTN,[12] similar to the percentage in the general population 20-44 years of age.[9] As in the civilian population, increased age, increased body mass index (BMI), male sex, and African American race were all independently associated with HTN. Compared to active duty military not deployed, exposure to multiple stressful deployments was also associated with a new diagnosis of HTN.[13] In the first study to directly compare cardiovascular health metrics of active duty Army men and women with those of NHANES participants evaluated between 2011 and 2012, NHANES participants had a higher prevalence of ideal blood pressure defined as <120/80 mm Hg (46% versus 27% for men, 63% versus 52% for women) compared to active duty Army personnel, even though NHANES participants were considerably older than the Army personnel (only 50% of NHANES participants <40 years old versus 86% of Army personnel <40 years old).