| Description: |
The Department of Defense is the United States' oldest and largest government agency. It is rooted back to pre-Revolutionary times; since then the Department of Defense has grown and evolved. The Department is not only in charge of the military, but it also employs a civilian force of thousands. Over 1.4 million men and women are on active duty, 718,000 personnel are civilian and 1.1 million serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces. The Defense Department manages an inventory of installations and facilities. The Department’s physical plant consists of more than several hundred thousand individual buildings and structures located at more than 5,000 different locations or sites. |