Good Question: Where Are America's Troops Deployed?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- According to the Defense Manpower Data Center, there are currently 2.1 million people serving in the U.S. military. About 62 percent of them are active duty and the other 38 percent are in the Reserves or National Guard.
Of those in the Reserves or National Guard, 95 percent are located in the U.S. Among those deployed overseas are 122 members of the Minnesota's Army National Guard, who are currently in Guantanamo Bay guarding detainees.
Among the active duty U.S. military forces, 85 percent are located within the United States. California has the most service members at 130,498 as of August 2017.
Overseas, almost 200,000 are stationed or deployed across 800 bases in 177 countries. The country with the most U.S. service members is Japan, which has close to 40,000, followed by Germany (34,000), South Korea (23,000), Italy (11,000) and Afghanistan (approx. 10,000).
The Defense Manpower Center also lists 26,000 troops whose whereabouts are "unknown."
The Congressional Research Service says, as of late 2016, there are 9,800 troops in Afghanistan. In 2007, there were 24,000 American troops there. In 2011, at the height of the last decade, the number jumped to 100,000. In July 2016, then-President Obama announced 8,400 troops would stay in Afghanistan through the rest of 2016.
Of the 1.3 million active duty troops currently serving in the U.S. and abroad, 35 percent are in the Army, followed by the Navy (24 percent), Air Force (24 perent), Marine Corps (14 percent) and Coast Guard (4 percent).
