![]() ![]() But they are actually much closer to the numbers seen in the late 1990s and even early 2000s. He seems to imply that the number of troops will be around 1940 levels. Kingston’s phrasing could use some fine-tuning. In 1941, after the United States joined the war following Pearl Harbor, that number shot up to 1.5 million troops. That list, citing the Secretary of War Annual Report and Strength of the Army Reports, shows that in 1940, there were 264,118 active-duty troops. Kingston said active-duty troops will decrease to pre-WWII levels. ![]() ![]() PolitiFact Wisconsin compiled a list of Army figures going back to 1775 while conducting a fact check of similar comments made by U.S. So Obama has not yet left the country with the lowest number of troops since WWII.īut putting that problem aside for a moment, how do the numbers compare with past deployments? The fiscal 2015 budget has a proposed five-year plan for military cuts - it hasn’t actually occurred yet, and it will require Congress’ approval. Right off the bat, Kingston’s ad faces a problem. It acknowledged the fiscal reasoning behind the decision, noting cuts made through the Budget Control Act of 2011 ($487 billion over 10 years) and sequestration ($50 billion annually). The proposal would shave off 15 percent of active-duty personnel over five years, from 520,000 to between 440,000 and 450,000. ![]() Amid the cuts were a series of reductions that included “shrinking the Army to its smallest size since before World War II.” We asked Chris Crawford, Kingston’s campaign spokesman, for the source behind the ad.Ĭrawford forwarded us to a February press release from the Department of Defense that detailed Obama’s proposed Pentagon budget for fiscal 2015. Is it true that troops are at their lowest level since WWII? And if so, are we really at risk? This statement made us press the pause button. “Obama’s backward priorities put us all at risk.” He’s growing government with wasteful spending while drastically cutting our military, leaving us with the lowest number of active-duty troops since before World War II,” Kingston says in the ad posted May 12 on his campaign’s YouTube channel. ![]()
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