USA Today is reporting that the army will contract by 40,000 soldiers by 2017 due to budget cuts.  The drawdown will affect every command and every post around the world. An additional 17,000 Army civilian employees would be laid off under the plan officials intend to announce this week. Under the plan, the Army would have 450,000 soldiers by Sept. 30, 2017, the end of the 2017 budget year. The reduction in troops and civilians is due to budget constraints, the document says. The Pentagon's budget, released in February, envisioned the reduction to 450,000 would occur by Sept. 30, 2018. Some of the cuts were expected. During the peak of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army swelled to about 570,000 soldiers to ensure that deployments could be limited to one year. After most troops came home from those wars, the Army planned to shrink.The Army should bottom out at 450,000 soldiers, said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings...(Read Full Post)