Back though the 1980s, we had an active duty force strenght of approximately 2 million. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and most of the Warsaw Pact nations broke away. In 1991, the Soviet Union was effectively dissolved. The Cold War was over and we won.

There was no need for 2 million active duty troops anymore. Politicians from both sides started talking of the "Peace Dividend", where reductions in the military would allow for money to be diverted from the DoD budget to other areas.* In response, Cheney drew up plans to downsize the military by 25%. That means we'd have fewer personnel, fewer ships, fewer Army divisions, fewer planes, fewer everything. What were we supposed to do, keep everything when the threat (as seen at the time) had ended?

Those cuts started in 1992. I know because I was one of those cut.** The cuts continued well beyond 25% during the Clinton administration, with the final number being somewhere between 30-35%.

*The joke at the time was that the Peace Dividend would be divided as follows:
50% would go to reducing the deficit.
50% would go to improved health care.
50% would go to revitalizing the inner cities.
50% would go to ....

At the start of 1992, there were approximately 2,000 Air Force officers in my classification (1985 year group, reserve commission, non-pilot status). At the end of the year, there were 105 still in the military. When faced with a 94% drawdown, it's hard to take it personally. I had over 12 years on active duty at the time and would've been able to retire in 2000. It just wasn't meant to happen, I guess.