Six months after a war that saw nearly a quarter-million reservists activated, the size of U.S. armed services has declined to its lowest level since just before the Korean War, figures show.
With the uniformed services due to shrink in mid-decade by roughly half a million from their Reagan administration peak in 1987, Pentagon officials reported Thursday that preliminary figures show that at the end of July there were 2,018,361 men and women on full-time active duty, including reservists on extended active duty.The figure was down nearly 11,000 from June and more than 31,000 from the same point in 1990 - just before reserves were activated for the Persian Gulf war - and it is the lowest number since 1950 when there were 1,459,462 persons on active duty.
The Pentagon is aiming to cut back to under 2 million by the end of this fiscal year, Sept. 30. The goal is to reduce active duty levels to 1,992,758 positions.
"We feel we are well on the way to doing that," spokesman Pete Williams said at a press briefing.
At the height of the Persian Gulf war there were 2,050,750 regular military personnel on active duty, including reservists on extended active duty, and a total of 225,258 reservists had been summoned from private life to active duty because of the war. Today, all but 12,502 of those reservists have been released from active duty and returned to the civilian world.
In fiscal 1987, there were 2.174 million people in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force, and the Pentagon estimates that by the close of fiscal 1995 the services will have been pared back to 1.653 million, or a drop of 521,000. Civilian Defense Department employment over that period is expected to fall from 1.133 million to 940,000.
In recent years the closest the Pentagon came to having as few people in uniform was in fiscal 1979 during the post-Vietnam War presidency of Jimmy Carter. At the peak of World War II there were just over 12 million persons in uniform.