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

More seperations means more veterans. We need to improve on outsourcing and outplacement programs which ease the transition into civilian life. In terms of manpower management,I believe guard and reserve recruiters can have a field day by marketing for prior service individuals to keep on serving. I wish all services had a baseline minimum manpower requirement because throughout our history we cut too much and always have to scramble for the next confrontation.

Collaborating with their partners external/internal and providing pathways for jobs that can be mobilized JIT, Just-In-Time modeling, as a contingent.

The National Guard and Reserves are doing it...why not the Active Duty component join up too?

DON'T

The Army really needs to take a look at loopholes in the system when you have NCOs who have not taken a pt test in years. Because they know the system with it's loopholes the Army needs to worry about fixing the problem of standards then the weak will be weeded out my personal opinion

Start with the Generals.

hope and prey and work to get a better commander in chief in the office next term.

Reduce spending on acquisitions and spend like crazy on training. We need challenging realistic training that pushes soldiers and leaders.

Weight combat experience in MOS to double points in promotion. Weight combat experience in your field by 1.5.
If a soldier has been in since 2003 and has not managed to get deployed, discharge them.

Hold government contractors to their budget, cancel the F-35. Focus on off the shelf solutions.

Training, training, training.

Personnel need to take advantage of the tuition assistance programs to get degrees. You are not a top performer if you aren't working to better yourself through education. I've seen too many NCOs that can't string two sentences together when writing reports or evaluations, and that is hurting our forces. If you can't communicate properly, it doesn't matter if you are the top tech in your field. Our junior personnel suffer when working for these people, because they are not competitive with others whom have good write-ups. Those who think a college education is unnecessary are fooling themselves.

Personally, I feel that they should educate Soldiers who are in that transistion window out. Provide them with educational oppurtunies, more so than the normal ACAP. I feel that leaders should have a bigger impact with sending Soldiers to Civilian schools, to give them the upper hand when they do transistion out. For example, in our section, our NCIOC is making a hugh push for all us (transistioning out or not) to obtain our Security + certification. His reasoning is, that this certification will make us more desireable in the job market, and ensure that we will have some sort of employment out of the military.

To whom it may concern:
I have read all the comments about downsizing.

i agree with one point bring back SQT testing.
This will provide an easy way to weed out personnel who can can not pass the test or do poorly.
Do not inflate the (EER) a term we had in the 60s and 70s. Rate the soldier as they should be rated. There are some gifted lower ranking soldiers who deserve a good rating then there are the soldiers who don't deserve a high rating but get them anyway,
I had a p-3 profile my last two years of service due to to many tank rounds being fired. but that is yesterday. i was still able to function with hearing aids. What about the deadbeat sick call runner who goes on sick call more than do work. Weed them out.
I agree get rid of the civilian cooks and mess personnel and bring back the KP. Believe it or not it does not hurt a GI to get there hands in dishwater or wait tables or peel spudes. Builds character.

Being idle is the worst thing you can do to a troop in garrison.