USA military - 3 types

[Peteri Szerlagi]

correct me if I am wrong please

The USA military has 3 major components - active duty + reserves +
National Guard

all 3 are funded by the federal government - except that the states
pay approx 10% of their National Guards budget

'active duty' are the primary soldiers - mostly 19 year olds who serve
for 3 years - some stay in the military for 20 years and then retire
with a pension - senior military officers go through college and enter
the military approx around 23 years old

Reserves are typically former active duty people - they are mostly
'weekend warriors' - they serve 39 days per year - weekends and 2
weeks in the summer

National Guard are also typically former active duty people - they are
mostly weekend warriors

'Active duty' staff and reserves are under the command of the
President - National Guard are under the control of the governors and
the President

per https://thegunzone.com/how-many-soldiers-are-in-the-u-s-military-in-2024/
- there are 800,000 reserves and National Guard in total - and there
are 1.3 million active duty - for a grand total of approx 2 million -
(good info at this URL - it mirrors what we put together here in this
post)

for comparison - Walmart has 2 M employees per
https://stockanalysis.com/list/most-employees/ - 1.5M per
https://largest.org/misc/employers-usa/

per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_components_of_the_United_States_Armed_Forces
- it seems that the vast majority of national guard and reserves are
weekend warriors - they might be called 'dual hatted' - they work
fulltime civilian jobs and they also work parttime as soldiers -
typically 39 days per year - weekends and 2 weeks in summer

note - many of the reserves and national guard work as civilian first
responders and civilian medical employees - when the national guard or
reserves are called to active military duty - then first responders
and medical agencies can lose up to 800,000 employees

note - per - https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-01/60886-Atlas-Military-Compensation.pdf
- 35% of military budget is for salaries - but that makes little sense
- what is the 'ops and mtnce' number? - maybe it is akin to the
federal wildfire budgets - they have a baseline budget that covers
basic staffing - they lump all funds spent on specific fires into a
different catagory - maybe its the same in the DOD budget - 'salaries'
covers the basic force - ops and mtnce covers everything they do when
they arent sleeping