US to cut almost 100,000 troops

BBC News - US to cut almost 100,000 troops

I thought our redundancies were tight!

Well, the numbers look bigger because the overall number of troops compared to the UK are much bigger as well. The % reduction might actually be much smaller. I am too lazy to do the math, just a hunch.

Oh lord, that means they will want more and more countries to help them fight their wars.

Below are the figures from a couple of years ago;

Originally Posted by redshift

Well, the numbers look bigger because the overall number of troops compared to the UK are much bigger as well. The % reduction might actually be much smaller. I am too lazy to do the math, just a hunch.

Not sure on the exact number of the UK cuts for all forces, so I can only give a rough estimate. UK's 200,000 active troops getting cut back 30,000 ish is a 15% cut. US's 1.5 million active troops getting cut 100k is about a 7% cut. Funny to think that such a small bump for them is the size of our entire Army, though.

Originally Posted by sunami

Below are the figures from a couple of years ago;

They've got that wrong, the troops would seem to outnumber the civil servants, I mean really, what are they thinking of?

Originally Posted by cernunnos

They've got that wrong, the troops would seem to outnumber the civil servants, I mean really, what are they thinking of?

Ha! I thought you were joking, but you might actually be on to something here. According to my lazy (and likely inaccurate) figures, your MOD has about 80k-ish staff while the my DoD has about 100k-ish people working for it. Kinda seems out of proportion with respect to the amount of active troops.

Mind you, I don't know how people are classified as civil servants/ DoD federal employees, so my statement might be completely out of whack here.

That's an interesting table. A few years ago I was given to believe by a USMC officer that they were limited to 199,999 by federal law. Maybe that is only active troops though, and there is quite possibly some fiddle with troops in training or on their equivalent of the 'y' list.

Originally Posted by redshift

According to my lazy (and likely inaccurate) figures, your MOD has about 80k-ish staff while the my DoD has about 100k-ish people working for it.

How can that be when the number for the army alone is given as 243,172? The total would appear to be 587,445 working for the specific services and seemingly another 97,976 working directly for the DoD. Still that is only about a third of the total so still a bit lower than the UK proportion.

Originally Posted by cernunnos

They've got that wrong, the troops would seem to outnumber the civil servants, I mean really, what are they thinking of?

Well, if you work it right, a chap can usually get a job in Civil Service with DoD with-in 12 months or so after hanging up his uniform for good.

Good pay, dead easy job, 40 hour work week with 30 days of paid vacation a year (usually) and a ton of Federal holidays to take off too. Sweet.

Ahh - so that explains this I was reading on the US 'GoArmy' site last night (I'm not thinking of trying this, by the way - just found it interesting.

....Hello there I am immigrating from my native country to the U.S in the coming month and was wondering if enlistment in the the ARMY is possible on a conditional residency card? My conditional residency will be acquired through marriage to My U.S citizen wife and is good for two years, I will have to file the paperwork to remove my conditional status within 3 months of my expiration date. I will then be able to become a permanent resident....

Recruiters have the most up to date information regarding enlistment regulations.


With the current climate of the Army's recruiting mission, enlistment requirements have become more stringent.


This site and some regs you find online may not have the most up to date information.


The Army isn't hurting for body's and as a matter of fact is actually under a directive to reduce the current strength.


So what may have been excepted just a few months ago, won't fly today.


Continue working with your recruiter and hopefully he can give you the answers and outcome you desire. Just keep in mind though that he doesn't create the current regulations, he only follows them.


Good luck and thanks for considering our Army