United States Department Of Defense
The Department of Defense (also known as the Defense Department, USDOD, DOD, DoD or the Pentagon) is the Executive Department of the Government of the United States of America charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States armed forces. The Department is also the largest employer in the world, with more than 2.13 million active duty Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, and also civilian workers, and over 1.1 million National Guardsmen and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Reserves. The grand total is just over 3.2 million servicemen and servicewomen, plus the civilians who support them.
The Department – headed by the Secretary of Defense – has three subordinate military departments: the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force. In addition, there are many Defense Agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the Missile Defense Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), all of which are under the command of the Secretary of Defense. DoD also operates several joint services schools, including the National Defense University (NDU) and the National War College (NWC).
The Department is allocated the highest level of budgetary resources among all Federal agencies, and this amounts to more than one-half of the annual Federal discretionary budget.
Read more about United States Department Of Defense: History, Organizational Structure, Expenditures, Energy Use, Related Legislation
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“The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everyone will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people believe that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses were always hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon to-day has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 18:17.
“... the Department of Justice is committed to asking one central question of everything we do: What is the right thing to do? Now that can produce debate, and I want it to be spirited debate. I want the lawyers of America to be able to call me and tell me: Janet, have you lost your mind?”
—Janet Wood Reno (b. 1938)
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)