In the 70's, they wanted a hollow army.

Rejection of Isolationism We must not go back to the days of "the hollow army."

The Army's Chief of Staff in 1980, Gen. Edward C. Meyer, told Congress that his was a "hollow army."

We went that route in the 1970's, and we have no intention of returning to the days of the "hollow army" again.

But the President also could not resist getting in a plug for his budget plans, cautioning the 1,003 members of the United States Military Academy class of 1993 that "just as our security cannot rest on a hollow army, neither can it rest upon a hollow economy."

A full accounting of how the post-Vietnam military, a "hollow army," in the famous phrase of Gen. Edward C. Meyer, became a world-bestriding force has yet to be written.

Shortly after General Edward C. Meyer became Chief of Staff in 1979, he said he led a "hollow army."

The Chief of Staff from 1979 to 1983, Gen. Edward C. Meyer, describe the force he inherited as a "hollow army."

Toward the end of the Carter Administration, the Army's chief of staff, then, Gen. Edward C. Meyer, told Congress that he led a "hollow army" that had a large share of unqualified soldiers and a lack of weapons, ammunition and supplies.

A shortage of volunteers for the 740-mile front was widely reported and some American intelligence officers began saying the Iranians had a hollow army.