Personnel strength for the active component of the Army is hovering at budgeted manning levels, with the service's latest official headcount totaling 490,357 officers, enlisted soldiers and U.S. Military Academy cadets.
The Army is slated to end fiscal 2015 on Sept. 30 with 490,000 soldiers. Budget documents now before Congress seek an end strength of 475,000 soldiers for fiscal 2016, which begins Oct. 1.
The manning level for Aug. 1 was 820 fewer soldiers than were on duty July 1, and 21,750 fewer than were in service Aug. 1, 2014. Since the beginning of the current drawdown on Oct.1, 2013, active-component strength has been reduced by 41,686 soldiers, according to statistics maintained by the Defense Manpower Data Center.
The latest calculations run through July 31. They show the Regular Army is composed of 318 general officers, 80,105 branch commissioned officers in the ranks of second lieutenant through colonel and 15,140 warrant officers. The cadet population of the U.S. Military Academy was 4,473 on Aug.1.
The Regular Army component of the force includes 19 women in the ranks of brigadier general through lieutenant general, and another 16,061 in the ranks of second lieutenant through colonel. There are 52,749 enlisted women and 863 U.S. Military Academy cadets, for a total population of 69,692 female soldiers.
The Army's reserve components have a combined strength of 548,075 soldiers, a slight increase of 258 over the previous month's total. On Aug. 1, the National Guard had 349,425 soldiers, and the Army Reserve 198,650.
