How many Navy Seals are there?

Factual Questions
1

I suppose I’m asking both about people who are currently serving as Navy Seals, and the total who have served in that role. The reason I’m asking is, everybody seems to know a Seal or three, but I’ve never heard anybody say “Yeah, my best buddy is a supply clerk with a mechanized infantry division.” The Army is much bigger than the Navy, and the Seals are IIRC only a tiny part of the Navy, so the arithmetic causes me to be a teensy bit skeptical of all the people who seem to know Seals.

(Which raises a tangential question of why the Seals get so much public attention when there are plenty of other special forces units … which raises the question of why special forces gets so much attention when convention forces seem perfectly respectable to me.)

2

This site suggests around 2,500 SEAL personnel in total. I don’t know the proportion of combat/non-combat.

3

Good link. Now I’m idly wondering how many generals and admirals there are in all the branches combined.

4

Good question. Apparently claiming to be a SEAL when you’re not is common enough for http://www.cyberseals.org to have a whole section exposing people who do that.

5

I know that in th 1980’s there were more generals than there were during WW II. It just shows you how top heavy they got. They probably have less now.