What's the most important thing the military should do while going through this downsizing period?

Downsizing the military is always the response of liberal government. A government who protects the spew jam interest of those who have no issues utilizing their right to free speach to bad mouth our brave men and women but never will put themselves in a position to defend that right. A government of those who value and encourage citizens and illegals to feed off the tit of those who work hard to provide for their families. 

The most important thing the military should do while going through downsizing is.....

Think about the present and future needs, make the military a lot more efficient (needs it badly), and get rid of a lot of deadwood equipment and personnel while you have the chance.

As leaders we should continue to train our soldiers in the basics I.e skill level 1,2,3,4,5..... We need to be up to date on what we lack as a whole I have seen countless amounts of troops who for example cannot do things like call for fire, a 9 line medivac, land navigation. I struggled with these things as a younger soldier still to this day I am not as proficient as I should be. With that being said no matter what your MOS is you are a soldier first and we need to be proficient at our basic soldier skills, because in this day and age of war anything and everything is possible to happen on the battlefield,This in my book would be the most opportune time to sharpen those skills, test us as leaders to teach,train and mentor our replacements as we get promoted or retire.

Have a reward program for best ideas through AKO. If your unit saves so much money they get recognition, 4 day pass, ect. Hold commanders responsible for enforcing recycling. In TRADOC I have seen it pushed but in line units I never saw it promoted.

don,t, we did this downsizing thing before and it took a decade and billions to rebuild and retrain and in the  time it takes we were  vulnerable. leave the military alone.

Rewrite doctrine, for the modern world.  Combat has changed from a linear battlefield and doctrine needs to change with it.  Training needs to be updated to reflect new technologies that are in use, and defense spending needs to be placed under control.  And lastly we need to avoid unnecessary conflicts, and start taking care of our own sick and wounded.

Focus on training, mental toughness, and physical fitness...get us ready for the next major conflict please and do not underestimate the authority of NCO's who have the combat experience Officers will rely upon in that next conflict.

Uhh....we've been in a significant downsizing period for a while now. The main issues that need to be resolved quickly are funding (i.e. the end of sequestration and an increase in the defense budget) and manning (i.e. adding more people instead of getting rid of them as well as increasing recruiting goals). We need to increase funding in order to maintain the systems currently in service, build new systems to replace the aging ones, and support current operations around the world. Additionally, funding should be increased so that the military can retain its best people. We need to add more people instead of kicking out perfectly good individuals and increase recruiting goals to replace what has been lost. These are the two most important things, as I see them. There are other items that will also need to be addressed after these two are taken care of. I would also say that there needs to be a top-down review of every single process in the military to see what works and what doesn't and which processes need to be fine-tuned or done away with all together.

Keep a force that is designed to defend our interests Naval and Air Space while washing out the crowd control and civil control they have been training on lately. We could really do everything we need to do with a strong Navy, Marines and Air Defense forces. We really only need a large army to feed the Military Industrial complex we have not fought a war since 1945 that we really should have been involved in! We can have a strong Guard and reserve for a WWIII, otherwise we are just throwing money down the toilet. We can repurpose our Military arms production into infrastructure.