Only 0.45% of our population currently serves in our armed forces. Why do you think this is so?

There are roughly 1.4 million active duty service members and around 850K reserve and national guard members. While the population of the US is roughly 322 million, only 66% of that number is between the ages of 15 and 65 which means only 213 million are even "working age." 2.25 million out of 213 million means that a little over 1% of all working age people are currently serving in the military. If we expand that to all who are serving or who have served that number is going to jump considerably. This article puts that number at 13%, 24% of all men and 2% of all women.

I believe those are pretty good numbers.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158729/men-women-veterans.aspx

Because they are not needed. FYI: It was only 12 percent during World War II.

Quotas set by the Federal Government.

Sgt Joe LaBranche

With an all volunteer...recruited...force, you are going to have less people joining compared to compulsory service. It is actually fairly surprising how many people do not qualify for all the various reason, so that shrinks the pool down even further.