Home Guard: Difference between revisions

* Although it is very rare, the Boy Scouts themselves have been known to serve in this role in particularly trying times. The Polish Boy Scouts fought against the Germans during [[World War II]] as part of [[La Résistance]], often serving as scouts and messengers, and at one point late in the war even using ''tanks'' that they had captured from the Germans to help [[Big Damn Heroes|liberate a Concentration Camp]].

* Near the end of [[World War 2]] Nazi Germany had the [[wikipedia:Volkssturm|Volkssturm]]. Military service has been part of German culture for decades, so in theory, the Nazis would be able to scrounge up a massive reserve force that could hold off the Soviets. However, in practice, the majority of Volkssturm members were old men and veterans of the First World War. It pretty much boiled down to giving someone a gun and hoping they could kill enough Russians.

* The Kamikaze were this. Because Japan was out of trained pilots(most of these were dead, the replacement program was inferior to begin with and needed more flight time then they had fuel to spare), the rather brutal alternative they came up with was to turn half-trained pilots into missiles. However callous, tactically it wasn't one of their worst ideas although they would have been better off surrendering. In any case though at first glance it has the weird Japanese romanticism about [[Suicide Mission|Suicide Missions]] the effect was the same as how many nations thought of their home guard. They recruited them from civilians(usually educated young men)and sent them into a desperate battle they did not have much expectation of coming back from-like other nations. The difference was that unlike Poles, Russians, Germans, and later Haganah troopers they were expected to push the button on themselves rather then just [[Suicide by Cop| fighting until they died]] but that does not make it all that different in essence. Thus they were not really the most bizarre example of the Japanese military cult's romanticism. That "honor" would probably go to Saipan where civilians including women and children were pressured into killing themselves in full view of the American invaders with a rather hypnotic flourish of ritual.

*The Fyrd was the [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo Saxon]] version of this. They owed a period of time a year. [[Alfred the Great]] tinkered with the calender to make sure the call up came to differing parts of the country in a staggered schedule.