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

Im in a company that has more contractors than soldiers. I feel we need to let more civilians go. 

Downsizing the military is always at anytime a mistake. We should cut the budget by employing our soldiers to complete building project, staff hospitals and clinics, and any other jobs that our soldiers have the MOS to do and get them out of the motor pool. It's OK to subcontract when we had the budget but when we don't then cut the civilians that you have to pay more money for. It helps the soldier keep up their skills and cut spending. Ever cutting back on brave people that has volunteered to protect this country and our way of life is WRONG.

The most important thing that should be done will shape all decisions that follow: make a "stop doing list".  This may sound silly and simple, but it will inform all subsequent decisions - many of which have been already addressed in this discussion.  

We cannot afford to lose the experience and intelligence that fills our ranks now. Sweeping across the board cuts threaten to replicate the "brain drain" that occurred in the 90's. The short answer, at least IMO, is to increase the manning at our Training Centers, Professional Military Education (NCOES, OBC, CCC, ILE, etc.), and our commissioning sources (West Point, OCS, ROTC). I feel the focus would be on providing more slots for E6 through E8 and O3 through O5 in order to retain that critical knowledge base. If the Army is ever asked to grow again, these are the ranks/positions that cannot be rapidly produced. By creating these positions in those teaching/coaching/mentoring positions, we would not only position ourselves to keep experienced leaders, but we would also poise them to have a direct impact on the improvement of the force at the operational and tactical levels. Furthermore, the addition of these positions would allow for alternate pathways of career development.

Educate those who will be downsized as to having a professional social media presence such as LinkedIn to be better prepared for the job search job.  Searching for a job is a full-time job & requires all your military soft skills & knowledge to get noticed and get the interview. 

Maintain combat effectiveness; I'm reading a lot of responses on here that seem to come right out Dilbert corporate speak. The thing- the only thing- that the military ever needs to emphasize is maintaining combat effectiveness. Unfortunately it ranks well down on the list of things that are emphasized by senior leadership.

Looking at the military like any other corporation, if I were a controlling board member my suggestions would be this:  Offer those that want to leave a severance package, offer top performers incentives to stay.  Do a top-down assessment of all departments to ensure they exist to support the product we offer, which in this case is the ability to perform in combat.  If they they don't directly affect that, then integrate them into areas that do, reduce civilian contracts and shift to support MOS's, or cut completely.  Improve the promoting system by incorporating a two part process, one being: an assessment of knowledge in your area/mos with APFT included, two being: an assessment of your performance by your peers.  This would insure that fully capable leadership is being promoted, not just the physically fit that show up.  Liquidate all assets that aren't intuitive to the product, ie: auction all outdated, unused excess, or damaged equipment and donate a portion of the proceeds to Veteran charities.  Perform regular spending assessments (quarterly?)  for each area and recognize and reward top performing areas and intuitive ideas for reducing waste.  Do a cost assessment on base locations and start shopping around for better prices.  Also look to more strategic placements ie:  is it better to have a base at point A and another at point C or could we operate more efficiently with a single base in point B and be strategically effective.  Create a panel of combat Veterans and Leaders to assess what equipment and training is essential in todays combat environment and cut the unnecessary.  In the ever increasing technological world, seek to incorporate and streamline more user friendly systems that could eliminate the need for staffing and manpower for some of the more mundane and easily automated tasks.  Focus on a continuing effort to reduce waste as waste maintenance and disposal costs $$.  These are some of the things I've come up with after my initial response and putting more serious thought into it.

Leadership is the key to making this an economically responsible Defense Force. Leaders, starting at the highest level, must begin a rigid and uncompromising level of sacrifice. Gone are the days of frivolous trips and lavish "Seminars" paid for with tax dollars. This level of frugality is contagious and will find its way down to the lowest levels of our military forces. We always have an economic strangle hold on budgets AFTER spending gets out of hand. It is time for the DoD and all government to be the example of frugality. We need a responsible and standardized level of spending and keep it that way. No more war time treasure chest of spending. Relevant and ready means always being trained and equipped to defend our nation at home and abroad, it just has to be done sensibly. We are asked to maintain our Arms and Equipment and as Soldier we will as long as leadership maintains their responsibility to fund necessary programs to maintain our forces. We need honest and educated decisions makers to determin what programs, combat equipment and support items are truly necessary to defend the current and future needs of our nation without compromising veteran's and current members of our Armed Forces.

We are going through a downsizing similar to the Clinton Era. The most important thing to do is to not over work our people. We should do less with less, not more with less. We need to train smarter and utilize other units for support and enhancing our training. We need to get rid of people that are out of standards and that don't want to be there. In this way we can make the most with what we have.

The Navy and Air Force should retain their size because they are hard to build in a hurry. The Marine Corp should stay proportional to the demand for likely small scale contingency missions. The Army should shrink to the level that it can produce the highest level of pound-for-pound readiness in decisive action while sustaining the peacetime military engagement mission; then be optimized to grow rapidly when needed. This would be in-line with our traditions, present security demands, and economic reality.