Army Gets New Civilian Boss

Pete Geren became the 20th Secretary of the Army Friday.   As Secretary of the Army, he has statutory responsibility for all matters relating to the U.S. Army: manpower, personnel, reserve affairs, installations, environmental issues, weapons systems and equipment acquisition, communications and financial management.  He is responsible for the Department of the Army's annual budget and supplemental of $170 billion. He leads a work force of more than one million active-duty and reserve-component Soldiers, 230,000 Department of the Army civilian employees and 280,000 contracted service personnel. He has stewardship over 15 million acres of land.