State Defense Forces, as modern state militia units in addition to the National Guard are usually called, have existed since the National Guard reached its modern form as a result of the reforms in the Militia Act of 1903 and the National Defense Act of 1916. State Defense Forces are authorized under Title 32, Section 109, US Code. Originally created during the First World War to perform the state missions of the National Guard while the National Guard was fulfilling its federal war-fighting mission, purely state military forces have evolved over the last century to meet changing needs of the states. Currently, twenty states and Puerto Rico have a State Defense Force as part of their state military forces. As might be expected, Texas, Puerto Rico, and California, have the largest forces, with Georgia, New York, and South Carolina also maintaining sizable forces. They go by a variety of names, such as the California State Guard, the New York Guard, the Indiana Guard Reserve, the Ohio Military Reserve, and the Virginia Defense Force. Funding for a State Defense Force is minimal. In most states, members donate their time and are not paid for training. While many states pay State Defense Force members for State Active Duty based on pay rates for the National Guard, service in some states is unpaid. In most states they form part of the state’s military department and are under the command of the adjutant general. Today, most State Defense Forces are oriented toward providing support to the National Guard in its state disaster response mission. They do not have a liability for federal service.
Modern State Defense Forces draw on more than a century of tradition of service to their states. During the First World War, states lost their National Guard when it entered federal service in the spring of 1917. The induction of the National Guard into the Army for war had been the realization of a long-sought goal of military reformers. The Militia Act of 1903 and the National Defense Act of 1916 had, however, not addressed the issue of what would respond to state emergencies while the National Guard was in federal service. Only Pennsylvania had what could be called a state police force, but Section 61 of the National Defense Act of 1916 specifically prohibited states from maintaining any organized militia besides the National Guard and naval militia during peacetime. When President Woodrow Wilson drafted the entire National Guard into the Army in the summer of 1917, the contradiction between the state and federal missions of the National Guard came to a head for the first time. The federal call-up of the entire National Guard for the war left the states without their primary means of responding to state emergencies. The various responses of the states demonstrated the advantages of maintaining “a well regulated militia” and the perils of not.
About half of the states created some organized militia forces to replace the National Guard for state service during the Great War. The size and quality of those state forces varied widely. They went by a variety of names, although home guard and state guard were the most common. The federal government stressed that states, not the federal government, had the primary responsibility for responding to law enforcement events and natural disasters. The War Department did not want to divert federal troops to deal with state problems while trying to prepare for fighting in Europe. The federal government could offer little in the way of material support for state forces. Service in state forces did not make a man ineligible for federal conscription, so any state forces would have to depend on older men or men otherwise not eligible for federal service. Wealthier states with compact populations such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York created viable state guards that served their states well. But many states created no forces and instead depended on federal troops in case of riot, strikes, or natural disaster, a stance the federal government tried to discourage. The War Department later estimated that home guard units at their peak contained about 130,000 men, of whom half had eventually been armed by the federal government. The war years were, in retrospect relatively peaceful; the immediate post-war years, 1919 through 1921, were a time of labor and racial strife. The most notable example was the violence that rocked Boston in 1919 when the city’s police force went on strike. But Governor Calvin Coolidge was able to count on the Massachusetts State Guard to regain control of the streets of Boston and end the violence and destruction. States without a viable state militia could only lobby the federal government to recreate the National Guard. Men who entered the Army through the National Guard in 1917 had no further obligation to the National Guard after their discharge as individuals. With the end of the war, state adjutants general had to create a new National Guard. By 1921, a new National Guard was forming, and wartime home guard and state guard units were disbanded.
Renewed interest in states creating organized militia forces in addition to the National Guard did not come until the autumn of 1940, when the entire National Guard was brought onto active duty for what was originally to be a year of training. In response to the concerns of some states, Congress passed the State Guard Act, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed on October 21, 1940, that specifically allowed the states the create new organized militia forces even though the country was technically at peace. The Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall recommended that the name State Guard be used nation-wide for these forces because this name “will indicate their status as soldiers within the Rules of Land Warfare. This name is preferred to the others so far proposed.” The formation of a new forces began in about half of the states once the National Guard entered federal service. State adjutants general were key to the rapid creation of new state forces. Adjutants general usually turned to former Army officers and men who had long served in the National Guard, but age or other physical shortcomings made them ineligible for federal service.
States followed no one pattern, but in general, State Guards resembled the National Guard, although the men in them tended to be older. The War Department suggested that states form infantry or military police units but admitted that the states really had the authority to form whatever types of units they wanted. The State Guard of each state was about half the size of the National Guard, the size the War Department agreed to provide support for. However, given more pressing concerns, the War Department found providing even that limited support difficult. The War Department did rule that men holding federal reserve commissions who had not been mobilized could accept commissions in the State Guard without jeopardizing their federal commissions. General Marshall reasoned such men would bring a maturity and professionalism to state forces. State Guard officers received their commissions from their states, and the states drafted the laws for the creation and use of the forces. By the summer of 1941, the National Guard Bureau listed thirty-seven states that had begun creating a State Guard with a total mustered strength of 90,000 officers and men.
The War Department planned to place administration of all matters pertaining to the State Guard under the provost martial, but as that office would not be organized until July 31, 1941, the State Guard were placed under the National Guard Bureau. There they remained until their dissolution after the war. Through the National Guard Bureau, the War Department developed training plans for State Guards, and issued its Regulation for State Guards. Such publications were really suggestions rather than directives, but most states adopted them. State Guards were to remain not federal troops. The only instance in which federal soldiers would conceivably take charge of State Guards would be in the event of an actual invasion of the United States. In that case, the senior federal officer would have command over all state troops in the invasion area, but of course that scenario never occurred. The War Department had little authority except in regards to the care and use of federal property issued to them. Some State Guardsmen complained that federal inspectors were heavy handed and expected standards more common in the National Guard. State military departments reminded the National Guard Bureau that State Guardsmen were volunteers giving up their time to serve. In response, the War Department encouraged inspectors to act more as friendly advisors.
Ten days after Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the United States into World War II, the Army had more than 48,000 men occupied with internal sentry duties, but General Marshall wanted to withdraw federal soldiers quickly and leave such mission to state forces. The War Department estimated that another 13,500 State Guardsmen were also providing similar services to their states, a number most likely far below the total of State Guardsmen on duty. The site of such men guarding bridges, dams, and other critical infrastructure helped the public see that society was taking positive measures to ensure protection. Once the United States entered the war, all states except for Arizonia, Oklahoma, Montana, and Nevada created State Guard forces. Additionally, the territories of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Alaska created Territorial Guard forces. These forces performed most of the normal state missions of the National Guard during the war years such as responding to hurricanes and riots, with State Guards of some states and territories more geared to opposing raids or an invasion from Japan. In some instances, State Guardsmen helped search for escaped Prisoners of War.
The years immediately after World War II were not as violent as the immediate post-World War I years, but were still a time of adjustment. By 1947, a new National Guard had been formed and State Guard units were disbanded. States were again forbidden to maintain an organized militia outside of the National Guard. That said, several states did maintain some State Guard-type force in cadre form—a skeleton force really—to be fleshed out during war. While these cadre forces were not authorized by federal law, the federal government took no action against them. The World Wars had seemingly set a paradigm in which, during war, the entire National Guard of a state would leave for its federal war-fighting mission, and the states would create a State Guard to take its place. Many states did not want to again have to start from scratch when war returned. The outbreak of war in Korea in the summer of 1950 seemed about to repeat the pattern. Several states began creating or expanding a State Guard in anticipation of a loss of its National Guard, but uncertainty over the scope of the Korean War left states with plans ill-suited to limited wars. While large amounts of the National Guard did enter federal service, all states retained sizable amounts of their National Guard. As a result, most states halted the creation of State Guards, creating uncertainty over their future. However, the continued threat of a large war with Soviet Union during the Cold War meant that the possibility of the entire National Guard again leaving the states for its federal mission remained. To be ready should that war occur, many states continued to retain some cadre of their State Guard, although seldom if ever using it. The National Guard remained in the states, and became increasingly associated in the public mind with state missions.
The National Guard, as expressed through the National Guard Association as well as the National Guard Bureau, opposed allowing any state military force to perform state missions in lieu of the National Guard during peacetime. At the same time, it wanted states to create temporary military forces during wartime to thwart political efforts to keep the National Guard in the states for local service during war. The answer was for purely state forces to remain as cadre units only during peacetime, to be able to rapidly recruit to strength during war. The federal government never challenged any state for doing this, and if it did, a federal ban on a state creating other organized militia might not have held up in federal court. In 1956, Congress amended Title 32 of US Code specifically to allow, but not require, states to create separate organized militia forces, which really just legitimized what several states were already doing. The Vietnam War saw a brief expansion of such forces but with the extremely limited involvement of the National Guard in the war, the need for any other organized militia forces was in doubt. Still, some states continued to maintain cadres of a State Guard as a hedge against the loss of the National Guard. Members usually bought their own uniforms, donated their time for training, and prepared for the day the National Guard would leave their states, but performed little to no actual state service. State Guards of the period were an uncashed insurance policy.
The concept of State Guard forces got a boost in the early 1980s, when the implications of the Department of Defense’s Total Force Policy made a call up of the National Guard for future wars more likely. Under Total Force, the National Guard was more deeply integrated into war-fighting plans, making it participation in a future Vietnam-level conflict more certain. The National Guard became increasingly concerned that state governments might pressure the federal government to keep part or all of the National Guard with the states in the event of war. Seeking to protect its federal warfighting role, the National Guard Bureau began to encourage all states to maintain cadre State Guard forces to assume the state missions of the National Guard during war. The end of the Cold War, along with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the breakup of the Soviet Union, greatly diminished the likelihood of World War III and a large-scale mobilization of the entire National Guard. The 1990-1991 war with Iraq involved the National Guard, but most states kept more than half of their National Guard units, resulting in little need to expand State Guard forces. A decade later, the attacks of 9 September 2001 and subsequent Global War on Terrorism was on a larger scale and much longer timeframe, but the pattern was clear—states retained much of the National Guard during war. The idea of the State Guard, or State Defense Force (SDF), as they were increasingly called, as a cadre hedge against the federal mobilization of the National Guard, was no longer practical. SDFs had to adapt to the new realities if they were to survive.
SDFs that survived did adapt, becoming a force multiplier in a state’s Emergency Response System. Rather than a cadre force ready to expand and assume the National Guard’s domestic missions during war, SDFs began aligning themselves to augment and compliment National Guard capabilities for state missions, usually those in responding to natural disasters. Working with State Military Departments, SDFs increasingly began to develop capabilities that allowed them to augment the National Guard. The lack of federal obligation has proven to be a real draw for SDFs. Several states found that medical personnel—doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians, and such—wanted to serve their states during a crisis yet did not want the federal responsibilities that came with joining the National Guard. Other were ineligible for service in the National Guard due to medical issues yet were fit enough for state service. Joining a State Defense Force was also much simpler than joining the National Guard, giving SDFs an ability to react quickly to changing needs. Professionals in the fields of law and cyber security also brought much needed capabilities to a state’s emergency response capabilities. The existence of an SDF gives these needed professionals a means of serving their states during a crisis. The COVID pandemic that hit the United States in 2200 showed the benefits of a well-run SDF in the states that had them. States such as Tennessee found they could swear in new SDF members in the morning and have them where needed in the afternoon, an agility not possible in the National Guard. The Georgia State Defense Force had about three hundred members on duty for 124 days—in a voluntary and unpaid status—to help with the state’s COVID response.
Currently twenty states and Puerto Rico have a State Defense Force. Uniforms for State Defense Force members are usually similar to those used by the National Guard, with different patches to indicate their purely state status. For example, SDF uniforms include their state flag on the right shoulder rather than the US flag. Many modern SDFs could more properly be described as a uniformed service rather than an organized militia force, as they are not armed. Rather than being organized to replace the National Guard, these forces augment the National Guard, giving their states a more robust response force during floods, earthquakes, pandemics, cyber-attacks, and other natural or man-made disasters. The ability of SDFs to rapidly adjust to changing conditions remains a key to their success. The World War model of the SDF replacing the National Guard for state service should not be discounted. Should the world situation reach a point when the entire National Guard is again called to perform its federal mission, those states with an SDF will be far ahead in creating new forces to perform state missions during a national crisis.
Barry M. Stentiford
Leavenworth, KS
27 April 2024