The
Department of Defense is America's oldest and largest government agency. With
our military tracing its roots back to pre-Revolutionary times, the Department
of Defense has grown and evolved with our nation. Today, the Department, headed
by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, is not only in charge of the military, but
it also employs a civilian force of thousands. With over 1.3 million men and women
on active duty, and 684,000 civilian personnel, we are the nation's largest employer.
Another 1.1 million serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces. More than
2 million military retirees and their family members receive benefits.
The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps
were established in 1775, in concurrence with the American Revolution. The War
Department was established in 1789, and was the precursor to what is now the Department
of Defense. The Department of the Navy, was founded in 1798. The
Coast Guard (part of Homeland Security in peacetime), can trace it's history back
to 1790. Congress, in 1947, established a civilian, department-level Secretary
of Defense to oversee an also newly created National Military Establishment. | The
U.S. Air Force was also created, along with a new Department of the Air Force.
The War Department was converted to the Department of the Army. Finally,
the three services, Army, Navy, and Air Force, were placed under the direct control
of the new Secretary of Defense. In 1949, an amendment to the Act consolidated
further the national defense structure, creating what we now know as the Department
of Defense, and withdrawing cabinet-level status for the three Service secretaries. The mission of the Department of Defense
is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security
of our country. We are war-fighters first and as such, have no peers. We
engage in:
- War-fighting
- Humanitarian Aid
- Peacekeeping
-
Disaster Relief
- Homeland Security |
