Quote: Gen. John Campbell, the vice chief of the Army, acknowledged Friday that telling troops in a war zone that they're out of a job is a difficult task. But he said some of the soldiers could join the National Guard or the Army Reserve.

The decision to cut Army majors comes on the heels of a move to slash nearly 1,200 captains from the ranks. Army leaders were criticized at the time for giving 48 of them the bad news while they were deployed to Afghanistan.

The Army declined to say how many majors will be notified while they are at the battlefront.

"The ones that are deployed are certainly the hardest," Campbell told reporters. "What we try to do there is, working through the chain of command, minimize the impact to that unit and then maximize the time to provide to that officer to come back and do the proper transition, to take care of himself or herself, and the family."

Campbell said it's difficult to avoid cutting deployed soldiers because of the timing schedules.

All the soldiers being forced to leave have probably already been given a heads-up that they were at risk of the job cut and will meet with a senior officer, according to the Army.

Those who are cut have nine months to leave the Army. And the soldiers who are deployed, including those in Afghanistan, will generally have about a month to move out of that job and go home to begin to transition out of the service.

The cuts have been difficult for many young officers, particularly captains, who tend not to have enough years in service to retire.

To make the cuts, the Army looked at about 8,500 majors who joined the service between 1999 and 2003. Some may have about 15 years of service, depending on all factors that go into credit for years of service, and might be able to retire, but many won't have enough time in the job, Campbell said

(08-03-2014 07:03 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  .

Cut foreign aid to third world nations, and warring countries like Israel...use that money on the debt and social programs that actually help Americans such as EBT/SNAP, Section 8, Unemployment Insurance, etc

(08-03-2014 07:03 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  The fact we spend over 700 billion just to "keep the monsters away" is ridiculous. Thats more than the next 10 countries combined. It's time to cut the military budget, and bring our troops home. After we've phased out many career military into private/public sector jobs, we can secure the border, and America will still be just as safe.

Cut foreign aid to third world nations, and warring countries like Israel...use that money on the debt and social programs that actually help Americans such as EBT/SNAP, Section 8, Unemployment Insurance, etc

(08-03-2014 07:54 PM)Pyrizzo Wrote:  

(08-03-2014 07:03 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  The fact we spend over 700 billion just to "keep the monsters away" is ridiculous. Thats more than the next 10 countries combined. It's time to cut the military budget, and bring our troops home. After we've phased out many career military into private/public sector jobs, we can secure the border, and America will still be just as safe.

Cut foreign aid to third world nations, and warring countries like Israel...use that money on the debt and social programs that actually help Americans such as EBT/SNAP, Section 8, Unemployment Insurance, etc

We spent more than 700 billion on ONE bailout. And you're complaining about spending that much on our defense? Second, the next ten countries don't have the same enemies that seek our obliteration. Thirdly, out of the 1200 captains that were cut, 1152 were ALREADY HOME. So you want us to bring the remaining home, and then fire them? Then you want to take pay from our military servicemembers and just give it to social programs? Your comments defy logic and are just wholly questionable.

(08-03-2014 07:03 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  The fact we spend over 700 billion just to "keep the monsters away" is ridiculous. Thats more than the next 10 countries combined. It's time to cut the military budget, and bring our troops home. After we've phased out many career military into private/public sector jobs, we can secure the border, and America will still be just as safe.

Cut foreign aid to third world nations, and warring countries like Israel...use that money on the debt and social programs that actually help Americans such as EBT/SNAP, Section 8, Unemployment Insurance, etc

(08-03-2014 09:17 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  

(08-03-2014 07:03 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  The fact we spend over 700 billion just to "keep the monsters away" is ridiculous. Thats more than the next 10 countries combined. It's time to cut the military budget, and bring our troops home. After we've phased out many career military into private/public sector jobs, we can secure the border, and America will still be just as safe.

Cut foreign aid to third world nations, and warring countries like Israel...use that money on the debt and social programs that actually help Americans such as EBT/SNAP, Section 8, Unemployment Insurance, etc

I fully agree that we spend way too much on defense...much of it simply waste and redundancies. No one is going to roll tanks across the border.. we are geographically blessed against invasion. A prudent reduction in defense spending and proper use of the funding to address actual threats would be appropriate. I also support elimination of ALL foreign aid that is not specifically humanitarian in nature.

I reject however that any savings from such a reduction should be spent on income redistribution schemes. It should be returned to the citizens that have been paying the bills in the form of tax cuts.

(08-03-2014 10:30 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  These cuts have to be great for the cadets in our military academies who have to be wondering if their career are pre-destined to be cut short. But the bigger question is, when do we start cutting Commander-in-Chiefs?

(08-03-2014 11:37 PM)ODUChm Wrote:  Not that were scaling now to a peace time military, its now time to reduce the size of the military.

(08-03-2014 11:37 PM)ODUChm Wrote:  

(08-03-2014 10:30 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  These cuts have to be great for the cadets in our military academies who have to be wondering if their career are pre-destined to be cut short. But the bigger question is, when do we start cutting Commander-in-Chiefs?

Those guys are the cream of the crop, and will probably not have to worry about that.

Its not like they randomly picked 550 majors to boot, as the last paragraph shows.

This is normal, we were fighting two wars, and needed as many enlisted and officers as we could get. Not that were scaling now to a peace time military, its now time to reduce the size of the military.