Less Soldiers Serving Now Than After WWII?

If you are a reporter with a functioning brain, I beseech you to take this report and then compare it to the number of suicides still in the military. If you thought you understood the problem before, this will really make your head explode. Less serving yet suicide totals remain high and Congress has done nothing to hold anyone accountable for the blank checks they write to "prevent them!" The question is, who is getting the benefits of all the money they pay out while families have to face funerals instead of futures? This is a link to the number of military suicides for 2015.

Army Has Fewest Active-Duty Soldiers Since 1940, Report Says
Fox News
May 09, 2016

The number of U.S. Army soldiers on active duty has been reduced to its lowest since 1940, according to a published report.

The Army Times reported this weekend that the Army's end strength for March was 479,172. That's 154 fewer soldiers than the service's previous post-World War II low, which was reached during the Army's post-Cold War drawdown in 1999.

The current number is still well above the 269,023 soldiers on duty in 1940, the year before America entered World War II. However, the report says the active force has been reduced by more than 16,500 troops over the past year -- the equivalent of about three brigades.

According to the Army Times, the Army is on track to reach its goal of reducing the number of active duty troops to 475,000 by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2016. Under a drawdown plan unveiled last July, the number of active-duty soldiers would be reduced to 460,000 soldiers by the end of fiscal year 2017 and 450,000 by the end of fiscal year 2018, barring action by Congress or the Pentagon.

If those targets are met, the number of soldiers on active duty would be down 20 percent from 2010, when there were nearly 570,000 soldiers on active duty.

In addition to those on active duty, the Army has 548,024 soldiers in reserve, for a total force of 1,027,196 soldiers. Under the drawdown plan, the total force number would be reduced to 980,000 by the end of fiscal year 2018.
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