United States Army

The United States Army is the largest, and by some standards oldest, established branch of the armed forces of the United States and is one of seven uniformed services. Like all armies, it has the primary responsibility for land-based military operations.

The modern Army had its roots in the Continental Army which was formed on June 14, 1775, before the establishment of the United States, to meet the demands of the American Revolutionary War. Congress created the United States Army on June 14, 1784 after the end of the war to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The Army considers itself to be descended from the Continental Army, and thus dates its inception from the origins of that force.

Control and operation of the Army is administered by the Department of the Army, one of the three service departments of the Department of Defense. The civilian head is the Secretary of the Army and the highest ranking military officer in the department is the Chief of Staff, unless the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are Army officers. As of August 31, 2007, the Regular Army reported a strength of 519,472 soldiers. By the end of 2006, the Army National Guard reported 346,288 and the United States Army Reserve reported 189,975, putting the approximate combined component strength total at 1,055,734.

World War I
The United States joined World War I (1914-1918) in 1917 on the side of Britain and France. Millions of US troops were sent to the front and were instrumental in the push that finally broke through the German lines. With victory on November 11, 1918, the Army once again decreased its forces.

World War II
The U.S. joined World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. On the European front, U.S. Army troops made up large portions of the forces that captured North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. On D-Day and in the subsequent liberation of Europe and defeat of Germany, the millions of U.S. Army troops played a central role. In the Pacific, Army soldiers participated alongside US Marines in the island hopping campaign that wrested the Pacific islands from Japanese control. Following the Axis surrenders in May and September of 1945, Army troops were deployed to Japan and Germany to occupy the two nations.

Cold War
However, the end of World War II set the stage for the West-East confrontation known as the Cold War. Millions of US troops remained stationed in West Germany and across Europe until the 1990s in anticipation of Soviet attack.

During the Cold War, American troops and their allies fought Communist forces in Korea and Vietnam. The Korean War began in 1950. Under a United Nations umbrella, hundreds of thousands of US troops fought to prevent the takeover of South Korea by North Korea, and later, to invade the northern nation. After repeated advances and retreats by both sides, and the Peoples' Republic of China's entry into the war, a cease-fire returned the peninsula to the status quo in 1953.

Vietnam War
The Vietnam War is often regarded as a low point in the Army's record. While American forces had been stationed in the Republic of Vietnam since 1959, they did not deploy in large numbers until 1965, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. American forces struggled to counter the guerrilla tactics of the communist Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army until 1973, when domestic political opposition to the war finally forced a US withdrawal. Two years later, the country was unified under a communist government.

The 1980s was mostly a decade of reorganization. The Army converted to an all-volunteer force with greater emphasis on training and technology. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 created Unified Combatant Commands bringing the Army together with the other four U.S. Armed Forces under unified, geographically organized command structures. The Army also played a role in the invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989.

By 1991 Germany was reunited and the Soviet Union was near collapse. The Cold War was, effectively, over. Then Iraq invaded its tiny neighbor, Kuwait, and a U.S.-led coalition deployed over 500,000 troops, the bulk of them from U.S. Army formations, to drive out Iraqi forces. The war ended in convincing victory for the Army, as western coalition forces routed an Iraqi Army organized along Soviet lines in just one hundred hours.

After the Gulf War, the Army did not see major combat operations for the remainder of the 1990s. Army units did participate in a number of peacekeeping activities, such as the UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1993, where the abortive Operation Gothic Serpent led to the deaths of eighteen American soldiers and the withdrawal of international forces. The Army also contributed troops to a NATO peacekeeping force in former Yugoslavia in the middle of the decade.