The Marine Corps will shrink from about 202,000 troops to as few as 175,000 under an estimated $1 trillion in Defense Department budget cuts set to take place over the next decade.
The service has been working for months on a plan to cut its force to 186,000 troops by the end of 2014, but that number could fall even more under a strategy to absorb the cuts unveiled Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Obama administration.
In recent weeks, the Marine Corps has begun offering plans for early retirements and reducing the number of positions in certain job categor