[frannie]

According to the 2003 World Almanac in 2001 [ the latest figure they have] there were 2,704,015 Federal civilian employees not including the military, As you know the
military is not a civilian employee.

You may be right on your figures but as I have watched the government employees numbers over the past ten years. The total in each department is always listed in the World Almanac and each year most every department increased the number of employees except the military,

The number for the military decreased in every service. The least, percentage wise were the
Marines

[lp boonie]

Federal full-time equivalent civilian employees: 1.8 million
Federal uniformed military personnel: 1.5 million
U.S. postal workers: 0.85 million
Federal grant-created jobs: 2.4 million
State and local mandate-created jobs: 4.7 million
Federal contract-created jobs: 5.6 million
source:GovExec.com January 1999

If you count postal workers it comes pretty close to your number. Postal workers usually aren't counted because they are a government enterprise and are theoretically self-supported (which they are for the most part, the government induced monopoly is the real issue with them). Notice the number of contractors and State and local mandates jobs. That's where the "growth" in the federal work force has really taken place.

Part of the military decrease is the Rumsfield policy to move support jobs (clerks, mechanics, cooks, etc.) to civilian or contractors and make more of the military direct fighters and not support clerks. Actually following the Marine model in all Marines are infantry first.