Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Hawaii may lose some soldiers as part of a big downsizing across the service, but it could be a "very small" number on Oahu.

"But I don’t know yet," he cautioned Thursday on a swing through the state. "We have to constantly go through that assessment."

"Here’s what I would say: Our defense strategy is to rebalance toward the Pacific, so we do take that into consideration as we make our decisions," Odierno said. "So we understand that this (Hawaii) is an important part of our defense strategy."

Odierno said Hawaii is an "incredibly important part of our Army and what we do here in the Pacific," and the soldiers in the region "play a critical role in how we want to move forward and (engage) with our partners out here in the Pacific."

The 22,500 soldiers in Hawaii are important in part because of the vast distances in the Pacific, which are "daunting," he said.

"We have soldiers on the Korean Peninsula, we have some in Japan, but the soldiers here in Hawaii really significantly reduce that distance," he said. "And so, having a capability here is essential to our success in the future."

Odierno visited Alaska and is on a two-day trip to Oahu.

He spoke to reporters Thursday at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam after touring the Army logistic support vessel SSGT Robert T. Kuroda, an Army Reserve ship assigned to the 9th Mission Support Command.

Odierno met with Gen. Vincent Brooks, head of U.S. Army Pacific headquarterd at Fort Shafter and Adm. Samuel Locklear III, who is in charge of U.S. Pacific Command at Camp H.M. Smith.

The Army chief of staff also was scheduled to have a "town hall" meeting with about 1,100 soldiers at Schofield Barracks.

The Army is considering big troop cuts at 30 installations across the country as part of a drawdown to about 450,000 soldiers by 2018, or 420,000 soldiers if sequestration returns in 2016.

Brooks, the U.S. Army Pacific commander, recently said the active duty Army stood at about 495,000 soldiers.

The Army is considering a worst-case scenario in which 19,800 soldiers could be removed from Schofield and Fort Shafter as part of the post-war drawdown.