Lex Anteinternet: Numbers and history. How an inaccurate understadning of history leads to the innaccurate headline that the U.S. Army is being cut to pre World War Two levels

Monday, February 24, 2014

Numbers and history. How an inaccurate understadning of history leads to the innaccurate headline that the U.S. Army is being cut to pre World War Two levels

It's being reported today that the Department of Defense is preparing to reduce the size of the Army to between 440,000 to 450,000 active duty soldiers. This is being reported as cutting the size of the Army back to "pre World War Two levels", which is inaccurate. This, in turn, shows how not really understanding history, leads to some erroneous assumptions.

The cuts create the smallest size for the Army since 1940, but that fails to take into account that 1940 saw the introduction of the conscription in anticipation of World War Two and the Federalization of the National Guard. The size of the Army in 1939 was about 200,000 active duty soldiers, with there being an additional 200,000 National Guardsmen. When Congress allowed for the mobilization of the Guard in 1940, it also brought in Conscription. That may mean that there was very briefly a period, in 1940, when the U.S. Army had about 400,000 men in it, but that would have been very brief.

The current size of the Army National Guard is 358,000 men, which is an enormously smaller number than there were at the Guard's post World War Two Cold War height. However, the size of the Army Reserve adds another 250,000 men. In 1939, the Reserve was very, very small, essentially being made up of officers only, with a few supporting enlisted men. There really weren't any organized Reserve unis, outside of medical ones.

So, if fully mobilzed, for purpose of the comparison, the size of the Army in all is branches today would still be over 1,000,000 men.

In considering these numbers, we also have to keep in mind that the Army of 1939 (and 1940) included Army Air Corps, the predecessor of the U.S. Air Force, which presently has 334,000 active service members, and 178,000 reservists of all types. Therefore, to make the comparison fully accurate the branch that existed prior to World War Two, on the active side, would be compared to a present number of over 1,500,000 active duty personnel.

Still, it is quite a drop in numbers.

But it's not accurate to compare it to the pre World War Two Army.

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Lex Anteinternet?

This blog has been around since 2009. In the very first post, we asked the question: "What the heck is this blog about?"

Our answer to the question was: "The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?"

We also noted: "Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book."

All of this is still true, but the focus of the blog has changed somewhat. It now focuses on the era from 1890 to 1920 in general, rather than on the law and lawyers specifically, although that may be far from obvious. It's also become the location where we comment on anything we feel moved to comment on.

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