Having served under Reagan, I must contradict you. Civilians have been working in and for the military long before Clinton began staining the carpets in the Oval Office.
There were contractors on Wake Island during that battle.
The big shift to hiring civilians to replace GIs at many traditional Army jobs began in the late Vietnam era and immediate post-Vietnam years. The idea was to get soldiers out of jobs that could be done by civilians — KPs in the mess hall, runing the NCO and Officer Clubs, doing post engineers jobs to maintain the physical structures on an military base — instead of having GIs do that and thus have “few GIs” doing non-military jobs. I must admit, not losing a soldier to being on KP several days a month, was beneficial to training. I had my entire section present everyday instead of one of them off “peeling potatoes and washing dishes” in the mess hall.
The combat brigade at Baumholder has folded its flag and will probably be re-established at Ft. Bliss as part of the 1st Armored Division, if it survives the comming Army budget cuts. The Army is keeping a brigade at Grafenwoehr, Germany, which was the 7th Army’s major training base with a full set of firing ranges. There will continue to be the major Army hospital Pirmasens and the supply warehouses there. USAREUR and a much shrunken V Corps HQ is being relocated from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden.