Here’s a timeline chart
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/
Aside from immediately after FDR the federal government has been fairly steady at 3 million personnel. FDR tripled federal employees and its stuck like glue since.
What’s also interesting is the amount of DoD civilian employees has not changed since at least 1980 at around 800k employees, at the same time military personnel has dropped 39% in that same time period.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-are-in-the-us-military-a-demographic-overview/
I can’t imagine anything other than set government bloat that has made a consistent need for 3 million personnel.
Oh, I understand. I'm just not sure we need 17 people for every one front line guy. I think we could probably cut that to 16 or 15, if we had better procurement and less bullshit