The United States Department of Defense is an agency of superlatives: the DOD is the country’s largest government agency and its oldest, and it is the primary occupant of the Pentagon, the biggest office building in the world. Yet for all that, its official statement on what it does is remarkably blunt: “We are war-fighters first and as such, have no peers.”
In general, the DOD handles issues related to national security and
military affairs, making it the primary target for groups who resent U.S. military involvement overseas.
Love it or hate it, we present 5 things you didn’t know about the United States Department of Defense.
1- The DOD's budget equals Exxon and Wal-Mart combined
Just what kind of monstrosity is the DOD? It employs over three million people, 1.3 million of them on active duty in the military, qualifying it as America’s largest employer. It operates on a gargantuan annual
budget of $419 billion, a 2006 total that falls just shy of matching the annual budgets of retail behemoth Wal-Mart ($227 billion) and ExxonMobil ($200 billion) combined.
Furthermore, the DOD’s three million total employees is more than double that of those two companies put together, a figure that falls shy of 1.5 million.
2- The DOD no longer investigates UFOs
Another thing you didn’t know about the DOD is that it long ago gave up on finding Martians in the skies over the U.S.
In 1948, the U.S. Air Force launched Project Sign to look into the rash of reported
UFO sightings. Over the next 21 years (and through two name changes -- first Project Grudge, then Project Blue Book), they investigated over 12,618 reports of UFOs and found explanations for 11,917 of them. The remaining 701 went unexplained.
In 1969, Blue Book was shut down, having concluded that none of the investigated UFOs presented any threat to national security, none displayed technology any more advanced than what was known at the time and none suggested they might be occupied by little green men.
3- The DOD only commands the Coast Guard in wartime
The U.S. Coast Guard, long the whipping-boy of the military’s five branches, is the one branch that does not ordinarily fall under the authority of the DOD. Rather, during peace time it falls under the authority of Homeland Security (as of 2003). Prior to that, it was part of the Department of Transportation from 1967. As law enforcement officers, the members of the Coast Guard also have the same legal authority as U.S. Customs officers.
During war-time, the Coast Guard becomes an agency of the U.S. Navy, although this may only apply to combat units within the Guard. Historically, despite their role to “serve and protect America’s coastlines and waterways”, units of the Guard have seen action in almost every major military conflict in U.S. history over the past 100 years.
Two more things you didn't know about the Department of Defense...
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Reader Comments: 14 Posts
Ironically, Gates stayed on with the new administration. Too bad, autograph hounds.
Thank god for the DOD, they allow us to use the internet to b*tch and cry about things we take for granite. The US is the best! take that world! Uninnovative panzies!
The U.S. Coast Guard: That hard nucleus of seagoing professionals around which the Navy forms in times of war.
Should be titled five things you wouldn't know about the DOD if you were an ignorant moron that didn't pay attention to the news or ever pick up a magazine. What a waste of time this article was/is..
Environmental criminal is not a trendy and communistic expression. It's a true statement. Imagine, if you would, that genetic testing proved that a criminal was guilty in a bank robbery. Irrefutable proof. Now like, let's apply that logic to the proof that lots and lots and lots of scientists from all over the world have brought forth unanimously agreeing that negative global climate change is the result of human activity, especially irresponsible industrial activity.
Let me ask you this, Yosh - does this make criminal investigators trendy communists, or is it just trendy to call things you don't agree with communist? I think that trend died out a long time ago with Joe McCarthy, pal.
Left out a few important facts:
1. The DOD is the world's largest single purchaser of energy.
2. It's so powerful that it makes a visit by a few Russian warships to Venezuela look like a joke to everybody but the news media.
3. When you need to shoot a satellite out of the sky, who do you call? The U. S. Navy. They did it last February. Mission accomplished.
One more: DOD research has given us more than a few scientific advancements that we all take for granted, starting with the internet. The list is very, very, long.
the exxon comment in the article's been apparently edited by either the site or the author. i hate it when they do that without saying so.
Regardless of your views on the corporate ethics of Walmart and Exxon, Mr. JeeUnit, AskMen is correct that the DOD's budget is larger than those two combined. In fact, if the states haven't changed, the US Defense budget is larger than the next 23 countries in the list COMBINED!
We spend more than all of Europe, Russia & China.
What the hell are you guys talking about?
And Exxon IS a freakin' environmental criminal ! And who said that AskMen had to be unbias. Dude, AskMen is own BY FOX!?! The most unbias media outlet in the world...
liberal much?
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