ARMY PERSONNEL END STRENGTH

Army Personnel End Strength



Army Personnel End Strength

Law authorizes the number of military members in every Service and component - this number is known as End Strength. Recruiting involves attracting and accessing both prior Service members and those who are new to the military ? referred to as non-prior service.

In the 1990s the Army dropped from 780 ?000 to 480 ?000 active duty end strength. Many in Congress wanted to increase the Army's end strength by as much as 40 ?000 troops in order to ease the strain of deployments. But the Army's top general ? Peter Schoomaker ? adamantly opposed adding end strength. Army planners believe the service can gain 10 ?000 spaces from military to civilian conversions. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has authorized the Army to temporarily exceed end strength limits by 30 ?000. The Military Officers Association of America questioned the numbers ? stating that the Army already is some 17 ?000 over end strength ? which would bring the actual increase to 13 ?000.

The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the fiscal year 2005 Defense Appropriations bill on June 22 ? 2004 which provided $605 million to support an Army end strength increase of 20 ?000 soldiers ? leaving the overall Department of Defense end strength of 2 ?263 ?900. The provision ? passed as an amendment to the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill ? would increase the Army's strength to 502 ?400. Voting against it were Republicans Gordon Smith of Oregon ? Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania ? Larry Craig of Idaho and Craig Thomas of Wyoming. Not voting were Sens. John Kerry ? D-Mass. ? Robert Bennett ? R-Utah and James Inhofe ? R-Okla. The House version of the bill ? approved in May 2004 ? would have added 30 ?000 Soldiers and 9 ?000 Marines over three years. Under the the fiscal 2005 Defense Appropriations Act which President Bush signed into law 05 August 2004 ? Air Force Reserve Command's end-strength ceiling was raised to 76 ?100 reservists in the Selected Reserve in 2005.

The Army's Average Strength during FY2004 was 210 ?252 higher than authorized end strength ? reflecting Guard and Reserve mobilizations authorized in the supplemental. [ Operation and Maintenance Overview ? page 178]

In October 2004 the FY2005 Defense Authorization Act increased Army end strength by 20 ?000 and Marine Corps end strength by 3 ?000 for ...