All civilized countries defend themselves through professional armies, militia armies, or both. Europe re-invented professional armies during the early modern era, after centuries of depending on knights, mercenaries, and feudal levies, and the professional armies often were used more to hold down the populace than they were to defend the realm.

The original English colonies in North America had militias for defense, both because it was all they could afford and because they had English cultural roots and were well aware of the threat to their “English liberties” the regular army presented.

The United States, well aware of the threat (and expense) of a standing professional army, kept the US army ridiculously small for first 150 years of the nation’s existence. We got away with this because (a) potential enemies would bankrupt themselves trying to invade us across the Atlantic (b) the US was so large a huge army would be needed to conquer it, and (c) the Americans could, given a few months of prep, call up vast swarms of under-trained, under-equipped, but extremely well motivated militia and volunteer forces and smother any attackers.

Through the years, the militia in America has always had two important constitutional functions in addition to the overt ones of defending the nation and providing a quasi-military reaction force for local emergencies. First, it disperses the power to create a large army between the states, congress, and president. Second, it provides a deterrent force should the regular army become a threat to the nation.

The National Guard is the descendent of the old militias, augmented in the 20th Century by the trained army and marine reserves. When the nation mobilizes for war, the reserves get called up immediately, the National Guard mobilizes to be equipped and trained to current standards, the congress votes vast sums of money through taxes and sale of bonds to finance the war, and the executive is given authority to organize production and direct resources to the war effort. The executive and legislature work together to reinforce the armies through calls for volunteers and conscription.

There are no restrictions on how the Guard is used once the nation goes to war. It becomes part of the regular military and serves under the same orders and rules as everyone else.

Notice how none of those last bits of mobilization happened when we went to war in Iraq? The guard is supposed to be partially mobilized for emergencies and fully mobilized along with the nation in a large-scale war. The guardsmen sent to Iraq have been cheated and betrayed by the national government and the citizens. They disrupted their work and family life to fight for us and we pretend we’re supporting them by waving flags and trash-talking people who oppose the war.

Since 2003, we have all been guilty of a horrible breach of trust with regard to our military, particularly the National Guard. Putting a National Guard general on the joint chiefs, tying the Guard to the regular military, is a bad idea for a number of the constitutional reasons I noted above. On the other hand, if the president, the congress, and the citizenry cannot be trusted to keep their promises to the people in the National Guard, having a spokesman in the upper ranks of the Pentagon might be all we can do to help them.

The National Guard needs to NEVER be shipped overseas.
Why would they need a ‘place at the table’ with the Joint Chiefs unless there were plans to send them all over the world for a really long time?

Thanks for the clarification. I have always thought their primary mission was at home, but I had that impression because I was either unaware of all their service in conflicts and/or only aware of their work at home.

As other commenters have mentioned it seems Bush has used the NG and is using them up.

The difference was that they were on orders, but were not deployed the entire time. I highly doubt they were serving in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, or Germany between September 1940 and December 1941. As far as serving 500 days in combat, we have several NG units that do that now. In fact, the average NG tour is 450 days.

No Guard division today has been mobilized to that extent. And the 45th served over 500 days in combat, in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. I think there’s a significant difference between mobilizing Brigade Combat Team Equivalents and entire divisions, and many NG mobilizations for OEF/OIF have been less than BCT-E’s.

I take your point, though, but I still don’t believe putting CNGB on JCS would change anything. There’s an inherent social sanction among GOs about going against the grain, and I certainly can’t see any CNGB saying “no” to operations — particularly when, in point of fact, the CNGB has no line authority over a state’s National Guard forces. That belongs to the TAG and the Governor.

At any rate it’s probably a moot point — if the next Democratic administration does a better job of following the Constitution than this current horror show does, laws regarding the Joint Chiefs belong to the Congress under the Constitution.

Hello fellow guardsman. My point is that a “seat at the table” so to speak would provide the negotiations capabilities and a greater focus on NG needs that could in turn be used to increase funding (or other such needs). It is not so much the direct, but the indirect benefits that I would be in favor of.

1457th Engineer Combat BN, OIF (BIAP) 2003-2004

Another quick point – Although the NG was used heavily in WWI and WWII, both of those conflicts were shorter in total, and individual deployments were much shorter. The national guard has never endured this level of optempo in history.

Administratively it’s problematic because the Chiefs of Staff — not the Chairman, but the individual Chiefs — are the senior-most officers in their respective chains of command. When activated, an ARNG unit (for example) reports at the end of the day to the Army CoS — the CNGB is an administrative, not tactical, position.

Professionally the challenge is that, unlike active component flag officers, state Adjutants General do not need ever to have had military experience — TAG is a political appointee, not a “real” military officer.

So you’d have to pay attention to the actual professional qualifications of the CNGB in a way that you wouldn’t with active component flag officers. LTG Blum, for example, the current CNGB, is Special Forces qualified but all of his command time is in the Guard, except for one tour as CG of MND-N on SFOR 10 in Bosnia. So compared to an AC 3-star, his reservoir is a bit shallow.

The National Guard as we know it was created by the Militia Act of 1903, which made the state militias the primary reserve force for the regular army. The term, “National Guard,” was coined in the National Defense Act of 1916, which also gave the President (and not Congress, as in the Constitution) the authority to activate the NG in wartime.
#######

True, but at that time we did not have an “all-volunteer” army. The idea was that the NG acted as a reserve force for the regular army, until the selective service could be brought into effect. In 1973, the Selective Service draft was removed and the role of our NG changed. Now that we are fighting multiple conflicts on multiple fronts, our NG is being used as a regular component of the active duty military. Albeit without the proper representation.

The National Guard as we know it was created by the Militia Act of 1903, which made the state militias the primary reserve force for the regular army. The term, “National Guard,” was coined in the National Defense Act of 1916, which also gave the President (and not Congress, as in the Constitution) the authority to activate the NG in wartime.

The 29th Division that landed at Normandy, for example, was the Virginia National Guard. The 45th Division, in which Bill Mauldin became famous, was a National Guard division.

But the basic point is valid — if you’re going to commit the nation to war, commit the resources. Otherwise, stay home.

There was at that time discussion about moving the CNGB to the Joint Chiefs. The nay-sayers — and I think they had a good point — argued that, when the Guard is activated, it is rolled up into the Army or the Air Force — both of which already have Chiefs of Staff. To elevate the CNGB would essentially be to say that the National Guard is a separate service.

On the other hand, those in favor of moving CNGB to the Joint Chiefs argued that the Marine Corps is technically part of the Navy, yet the Commandant of the Corps AND the Chief of Naval Operations both get to be on the JCS.

The 2006 debate was over the National Defense Enhancement and National Guard Empowerment Act and, to be honest, though Rumsfeld was in fact opposed to it he didn’t “kill” it — the Act didn’t make enough allies in Congress for a full vote.