Military vs Post Office, Research Paper Example

Definition

Post office or the United States Postal Service (USPS) is “an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the Unites States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution” (the USPS official website).

Military office of the USA is the overall unified armed forces of the United States. “The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations” (Bender).

History of creation

Military forces of the United States of America or the Unites States armed forces were first created not long before the Second Continental Congress, which marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. At that time, in 1770s, the armed forces consisted of three parts: the Continental Army, the Continental Marines, and the Continental Navy. After the end of the war for a shirt period of time the country didn’t have any military office, but this situation was changed after the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. But the official peacetime army began to function only after the end of the Second World War.

In the same way as the military office, The United States Post Office was as well established in 1775 during the Second Continental Congress under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin. In 1792 it was transformed into the Post Office Department, which was a part of the Presidential cabinet. The final re-organization was conducted in 1971 when the department became a quasi-independent corporation of the federal government and got the title of the United States Postal Service. The use of railroads for mail transportation started in 1832 and in 1869 the Railway Mail Service was established. In 1913 the parcel post service was inaugurated, and then in 1918 the air mail service was added to the Post Office Department.

Current Situation

Number of members: Presently the U.S. military office consists of 1,473,900 active members and 1,458,500 members of the reserved personnel, which makes it the 4^th largest army in the world after Vietnam, Russia and South Korea. On the contrast, the United States Postal Service (the USPS) employs only 656,000 workers, but it is the largest in the world in terms of the vehicle fleet which includes some 260,000 trucks and cars.

Funds: One of the greatest differences between these two offices is that while the U.S. Postal Service operates with generating income for the state, the United States armed forces is one of the key consumers of the national budget. Current military budget of the USA has a base of $431.7 billion and in addition $169.2 billion are spent on the war with terrorism. Thus the overall defense budget of the country is $651 billion, which makes it the largest in the world. In 2008 the United States Postal Service generated the revenue of $74.932 billion, which was a higher indicator then in 2007.

Structural Organization

As a quasi-governmental agency the United States Postal Service is controlled by the President. The USPS has its own Board of Governors that is responsible for setting and executing procedures, policies, and services of the organization. The Board consists of eleven members, nine of them are appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate; the tenth member is the United States Postmaster General who is elected by the above nine members; the eleventh seat is an open one. On the day to day basis the Postmaster General serves as a Chief Executive Officer of the organization. He also nominates a Deputy Postmaster General, who acts as a Chief Operating Officer.

On the contrast, the organizational structure of the U.S. military office is much more complicated. The Commander-in-Chief of the United States armed forces is the President of the state; the key military policy-maker is the Department of Defense, which is headed by the Secretary of Defense; the coordination of military actions from the diplomatic viewpoint is conducted by the National Security Council. The country’s military office consists of six service branches – U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Coast Guard. Each of them has its own head and they all together make up the Joint Chiefs of Staff which serves as an advisory board for the President and the Secretary of Defense.

Thus it can be seen that despite all the differences in the organizational structure of the military and post offices, they have one very important feature in common – the work of both is supervised by the President of the United States of America.

Plans for the future

Both the armed forces of the United States and the U.S. postal office have their plans for the future and visions of the directions in which each organization will develop. The major difference between these two offices at this point is that the greatest transformation in the military forces of the country will be connected with the enlargement of the overall size of the troops while the biggest re-organization in the postal service will take place in terms of the technical improvement of its services.

In October of 2008 the U.S. Postal Service has published its five-year plan. The greatest improvement in the office’s services that the board is planning to conduct is the implementation of the Intelligent Mail Barcode a system “that will allow pieces of mail to be tracked through the delivery system, as competitors like UPS and FedEx currently do” (United States Postal Service official website).

The main current goal of the military heads of the country is to increase the number of troops in order to meet the demands of the War on Terrorism. Thus it was decided that by 2012 the Army will be enlarged to 547,400 and the Marine Corps to 202,000. In 2009 it was also proposed to increase “the size of the Army by 22,000 troops in order to reduce fatigue from multiple trips overseas, and to compensate for troops who are in recovery away from their units” (Bender).

Thus, a conclusion may be drawn that although in overall the military and post offices have completely different organizational structures and areas of conducted affairs, both of these organizations have one important feature in common – they serve for the well-being of the state and its citizens.

Works Cited

“About USPS & News.” United States Postal Service.  1 Jan. 2009. 14 Oct. 2009. http://www.usps.com/about/welcome.htm?from=home_header&page=aboutuspsandnews

Bender, Bryan. Gates calls for buildup in troops. 12 Jan. 2007. 14 Oct. 2009. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/12/gates_calls_for_buildup_in_troops/