How many combat soldiers are there in the U.S. military at this time?
A breakdown by service (Army, Marines, etc.) would be useful. Please
cite a reliable and checkable source.

Dear dgc,

According to the most up-to-date official data publicly available,
these are the numbers of U.S. soldiers in active duty as of April 30,
2002:

Army: 481,266

Navy: 381,901

Marine Corps: 172,741

Air Force: 362,330

Coast Guard: 36,914 (as of Oct. 2001)

Total: 1,398,238

These official figures have been published by the U.S. Department of
Defense in the current Defense Almanac. Newer data is not available
yet.

Source:

Defense Almanac - Active Duty, by the U.S. Department of Defense, 2002
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/almanac/people/activeduty.html

Defense Almanac, by the U.S. Department of Defense, 2002
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/

Hope this is what you were looking for!
Regards,
Scriptor

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Request for Answer Clarification by dgc-ga on 09 Aug 2002 12:09 PDT

I guess I should have underlined "combat." I have figures for total
active military personnel. I am interested in the numbers (broken out
by service branch if possible) of COMBAT personnel, which I am sure is
a considerably smaller number. I hope you will be able to find out
this information somewhere.

Thank you.

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Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 09 Aug 2002 15:18 PDT

Dear dgc,

I have, alas, not been able to obtain reliable data that would satisfy
you, though I have searched literally for hours.
However, I must stress that I really understood the term "combat
soldiers" as the converse of "civilian personnel".
Because I did not provide you the information you requested, you are
entitled to demand a free re-post of your question.

I am very sorry.
Regards,
Scriptor

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Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 10 Aug 2002 11:18 PDT

Dear dgc,

Thank you very much, you are very kind.

Best regards,
Scriptor

I am rating this four stars only because I don't want to be
responsible for lowering "scriptor"'s overall rating, and I appreciate
the effort scriptor put into it. However, the question wasn't
answered. It's a tough one, and I don't want to bother having it
re-posted. If Google wants to call it "answered," I won't dispute the
charge. Thanks for the time and effort.

I would say that ALL military personnel are combat personnel.  Hence
the necessity for cooks, drivers, engineers etc to complete basic
training  ie.basic training for combat.