In few states do US military forces and defense-related industries play such a large role as in Texas, which as of 2002 had 115,000 active-duty military personnel and 37,238 civilian personnel employed at major US military bases. Also in 2002, Texas received prime defense contract awards worth more than $9.5 billion.
Ft. Sam Houston, at San Antonio, is headquarters of the US 5th Army, while Ft. Bliss, at El Paso, is the home of the US Army Air Defense Center. Ft. Hood, near Killeen, is headquarters of the 3rd Army Corps and other military units. It is the state's single largest defense installation. Ft. Sam Houston is also the headquarters of the US Army Health Services Command and the site of the Academy of Health Sciences, the largest US military medical school, enrolling more than 25,000 officers and enlisted personnel and providing correspondence courses for another 30,000 students. Brooke Army Medical Center, the 2nd-largest US Army hospital, is located at the same installation. William Beaumont Army Medical Center, at El Paso, is one of the nation's largest US Army hospitals and one of its most modern medical treatment centers.
Four principal Air Force bases are located near San Antonio: Brooks, Kelly, Lackland, and Randolph. Other major air bases are Dyess (Abilene); Ellington (southwest of Houston); Goodfellow (San Angelo); Laughlin (Del Rio); Reese (Lubbock); and Sheppard (Wichita Falls). All US-manned space flights are controlled from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, operated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Naval air training stations are located at Corpus Christi, Beeville, Dallas, and Kingsville. The Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility, at Orange, is home port for some of the US Navy's "mothball fleet."
Texas was a major military training center during World War II, when about one out of every 10 soldiers was trained there. Some 750,000 Texans served in the US armed forces during that war; the state's war dead numbered 23,022. Military veterans living in the state according to the 2000 Census totaled 1,754,809, including 284,485 who served in World War II; 179,512 during the Korean conflict; 533,801 during the Vietnam era; and 263,192 during 1990–2000 (including the Persian Gulf War). Expenditures on Texas veterans totaled nearly $3.7 billion in 2002.
The Texas Army National Guard has dual status as a federal and state military force. The Texas State Guard is an all-volunteer force available either to back up National Guard units or to respond to local emergencies.
The famous Texas Rangers, a state police force first employed in 1823 (though not formally organized until 1835) to protect the early settlers, served as scouts for the US Army during the Mexican War. Many individual rangers fought with the Confederacy in the Civil War; during Reconstruction, however, the rangers were used to enforce unpopular carpetbagger laws. Later, the rangers put down banditry on the Rio Grande. The force was reorganized in 1935 as a unit of the Department of Public Safety and is now called on in major criminal cases, helps control mob violence in emergencies, and sometimes assists local police officers. The Texas Rangers have been romanticized in fiction and films, but one of their less glamorous tasks has been to intervene in labor disputes on the side of management. In 2000, the Texas Department of Public Safety employed 3,119 full-time sworn officers.