10 Moments That Shaped Today's National Guard

By Eric Brandner

You can’t explain 375 years in one story.

Established in Massachusetts in 1636, the force we now know as the National Guard sustained and protected the infant colonies, eventually helping end Britain’s colonial rule. Those men - mustering for the first time in 1636 - weren’t thinking about how to create the framework for a global force. They just wanted to protect their families from Pequot Indians.

There were similar motivations for citizen-soldiers of the next 200 years, who pooled their resources to stave off domestic threats and foreign invasions before eventually turning their rifles against one another to fight the Civil War.

It took nearly 300 years and thousands of tales of valor before Guardsmen were fighting defining battles abroad, helping to establish America’s international dominance as a force for freedom. Today, they can be found across the globe, providing muscle and resources in Afghanistan and rushing to the aid of their communities at home, just like their colonial predecessors.

With so many stories to tell, and endless debates over which are the most important, On Patrol turned to National Guard historian Bill Boehm to help identify 10 flashpoints in National Guard history. These highlights illustrate how the Guard became the force of citizen-soldiers it is today.

1. December 1636

All males between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to join one of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s three regiments upon their December 13, 1636, establishment, marking the beginning of the first organized American fighting force. This early version of what would become state militias first mustered in early 1637, drilling once a week and pulling night duty in case of attacks from Native Americans. Massachusetts’ original three regiments arc still operating today in the form of the 101st Engineer Battalion, 101st Field Artillery Regiment and 182nd Infantry Regiment.

2. April 1775

When Major John Buttrick shouted “Fire!” on April 19, 1775, he was doing far more than telling his Middlesex County (Massachusetts) Regiment to defend themselves. He was lighting the fuse on the American Revolution. While the road to rebellion against the British was being paved long before Buttrick’s order, the battles of Lexington and Concord that day showed that Americans were not only willing to fight back, but chat they could also move effectively and strategically to inflict significant casualties on the rival Red Coats. The incident produced the phrase, “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” which first appeared in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” in 1837 and has been re-appropriated in American popular culture for more than two centuries.

3. January 1781

Convinced they couldn’t defeat the colonies in the north, the British turned their focus to conquering North and South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. Taking those four states – Britain controlled Florida at the time – would have reestablished a diagonal path of British control stretching northwest into Canada, surrounding the new colonist nation and leaving it prone to attack from all sides. The Battle of Cowpens was the turning point in the Southern campaign.

In one of the most notable strategic victories on American soil, a group of 300 Continental Army soldiers and 700 militiamen from North and South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia killed, wounded or captured 900 of the 1,100-man British force it encountered in the northwestern pastures of South Carolina. American Brigadier General Daniel Morgan’s decision to have militia sharpshooters fire on the oncoming British troops inflicted significant casualties at the battle’s outset and forced the British to deploy their reserves. The Americans’ apparent retreat after the initial volleys drew the pursuing British, who were then funneled into a trap by the American cavalry where they then faced off with the Continental Army, which was established to coordinate the colonies’ military efforts. When the British moved to retreat, some militia members who stuck around attacked again with help from the remaining cavalry.

4. July 1863

A pair of militias fighting under the Union flag proved crucial to holding off the Confederacy during the Battle of Gettysburg, ending Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s northern invasion and turning the tide in the Civil War. The First Minnesota Infantry plugged a hole in the Union line on July 2 that would have been fatal had it been exploited by the Confederates. The regiment’s now-legendary bravery kept the Union shape intact, but resulted in the deaths of 215 of the First Minnesota’s 262 men that day.

Also on July 2, the 20th Maine Infantry preformed one of the more significant feats of the Civil War. Holding down the far left flank of the Union line, the Mainers fended off six charges from a pair of Alabama regiments. Knowing his men didn’t have the firepower to withstand a seventh engagement, 20th Maine Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain ordered a bayonet charge down Little Round Top that caught the Confederates by surprise, ending the threat to the Union flank. Chamberlain was elected as Maine’s governor in 1866 and awarded the Medal of Honor in1893 for his Gettysburg actions.

5. July 1898

Then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt resigned his post in 1898 to concentrate on building a fighting force for the impending war with Spain. His Rough Riders – a volunteer force comprised of men from all walks of life serving under the flag of the First New Mexico Cavalry-entered federal service as the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, and traveled to Cuba to fight the Spanish. On July 1, the Rough Riders, (who were more infantry than cavalry, as they arrived in Cuba without horses), overran several enemy positions in the Battle of San Juan Hill. The Spanish gave up the fight two weeks later. Roosevelt’s efforts catapulted him to national prominence.

6. June 1916

A 1916 raid by Mexican rebels against an Army garrison in New Mexico led to the federalization of the National Guard of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. By June, thousands more Guard troops had been called up to serve along a swath of border stretching from Arizona to Texas. The massive mobilization proved valuable two years later when many of the same Guardsmen were deployed overseas to fight in World War I.

7. September 1918

America entered World War I in 1917. A year later, a pair of historic Guard stories unfolded on the killing fields of Europe. Harry S. Truman, then a captain in the Missouri National Guard, was part of the combat debut of the U.S. First Army in Argonne, France, in May 1918, which led to significant Allied gains. Later that fall, Harlem’s “Hell Fighters” proved their mettle. The 15th New York Regiment – rebranded the 369th Infantry Regiment upon their arrival in Europe – was an assembly of black Guardsmen who fought valiantly in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. The entire regiment of “Hell Fighters” was awarded France’s Croix de Guerre for their heroism.

8. September 1940

The echoes of World War II across the Atlantic Ocean led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to call up the National Guard for a full year of training. The federalization of the Guard doubled the size of America’s active-duty forces. That, combined with the institution of America’s first peacetime draft, provided the manpower for the country’s eventual intervention in Europe. Guard units participated in a series of battlefield exercises over the next few years, including the Louisiana Maneuvers, which allowed America’s military brain trust to correct tactical flaws before joining the fight against Axis powers.

9. August 1990

The Gulf War was the first successful test of the Total Force policy, a strategy the Defense Department enacted after reviewing the lessons of Vietnam. The Total Force policy mandates National Guard and Reserve troops deploy in both support and combat roles alongside their active-duty counterparts in future American conflicts. The eventual downsizing of the Army led to a greater reliance on Guard and Re- serve forces in future conflicts and humanitarian missions.

10. August 2005

Four years after the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina brought devastation to America’s Gulf Coast, creating an unprecedented worldwide need for Guardsmen. The storm could not have come at a worse time for America’s citizen-soldier force, as more than 79,000 Guardsmen were federalized to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when Katrina slammed ashore. Still, more than 50,000 Guardsmen from across the country quickly deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi to provide humanitarian relief, distribute supplies, evacuate residents and step into law enforcement roles.

–National Guard historian Bill Boehm contributed to this story. Eric Brandner is the USO’s director of story development.