We're Busier Than Ever
Every month we cut 5 million paychecks, take 920,000 contract or purchase
actions, fit our troops with 50,000 pairs of boots and serve 3.4 million
meals.
On any given day we buy enough fuel to drive a car around the world
13,000 times, maintain 12,000 miles of waterways, operate 24 percent
of the nation’s hydropower capacity, manage 225 schools and provide
day care for 200,000 children. We are the world’s largest employer-sponsored
day care provider and have been recognized by the White House as
a model for others to follow.
Last year we recruited 207,000 new employees and separated about
170,000 employees; that's more than a one-quarter turnover of our
uniformed personnel and a three percent turnover of our civilians
… which comes to 18.4 percent of our entire work force.
Major Deployments & Operations
Although the end of the Cold War implied a less dangerous world,
this has not been the case. Despite the demise of the Soviet Union,
and the downsizing of the U.S. military, American operational commitments
since 1990 have made us busier than ever.
This map reflects our military’s operational tempo from the end
of the Cold War through last year -- 99 major commitments of Americans
in uniform, both active and reserve, to virtually every corner of
the globe. Those marked in yellow are multi-year operations.
The impact these commitments have had on our military has been
unrelenting -- our Army deployments have increased 300 percent in
the past 10 years and in the last six years the number of deployed
Navy ships on any given day has increased by 52 percent. And since
1986 the number of Air Force deployments has quadrupled.
And while those commitments were increasing the number of soldiers
and civilians in the Army was being reduced by 40 percent and the
number of ships in the Navy fell by 30 percent. And the Air Force
lost one-third of its people.
Emergency deployments
Planned commitments are further affected by those of an emergency
nature, such as the disaster relief support we are providing to
the flash flooding in Venezuela, southern Mozambique and South Africa
... and in Kosovo and East Timor, where we have undertaken peacekeeping
and humanitarian relief efforts.
Guard & Reserve deployments
These increasing commitments have not only affected our active
forces. Last year alone some 235,000 Guardsmen and Reservists, averaging
19 days each, deployed overseas performing duties ranging from humanitarian
and peacekeeping missions to readiness training. Some 325,000 deployed
in the U.S. to support domestic priorities such as counter drug
operations and natural disaster assistance, averaging 22 days each.
Over the past 10 years the number of days these patriots served
on active duty increased 13 fold!
Just on the home front -- our level of support has been hectic.
Over these selected periods we responded to almost 300 disasters,
more than 600 National Guard commitments and almost 10,000 requests
from law enforcement agencies.
From 1994-98: 285 federal disasters or emergency declarations
From 1997-98: 616 National Guard commitments
From 1992-96: 9,937 requests for military support to civilian
law enforcement
updated: 2000-Jul-03
