Home Guard: Difference between revisions
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* In the U.S. this is called the National Guard, which traces its lineage back to [[Older Than They Think|1636]], with the formation of the Massachusetts Bay Regiments, local militias formed together by the colonial government into larger units so they could more effectively deal with the Pequot tribes.
**The Founding Fathers had a fear of [[The Generalissimo| military takeovers]] that goes back to [[Oliver Cromwell]] or even to [[Magna Carta|Medieval Kings]] who wanted to rule without Parliament. This is a normal theme in English history and is coincidently why the Royal Navy has more prestige(you can't do a coup with ships unless you can figure a way to take them inland). Because of this they put to much confidence in the militia. In point of fact they were a fine recruiting pool and made for a nation in which effectively [[Everyone Is Armed|everyone had been to boot camp.]] But when they were put into battle ''as'' militia, they usually found that militia who were serving out of state, commanded by(often elected) non-professional officers who were neighbors of the men they were supposed to order to their deaths and half-trained anyway. The result was that they of course ran. When militia was used properly(I.E. as a building block) in the [[American Civil War]] both sides could field a proper army in a remarkably short amount of time.
***There was also the fact that the militia knew the that the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War were to some degree [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen|honor contests]] rather then wars of mutual extermination. While there was plenty of brutality to go around perhaps especially in the Revolution, it was well known that the other side spoke the same language, was human, and would not put their families in an intolerable situation if they were conquered.
** In modern times, National Guardsmen typically are equipped with the same gear as their "Regular" Active Duty brethren, although up until the later years of the Cold War, it wasn't unusual for them to use obsolete equipment that had been cast off by the regular service, particularly for the Air Guard, since military aircraft are considerably more expensive than an infantryman's kit.
*** In addition to the National Guard, certain states even have a State Guard, essentially a National Guard writ small, which the Federal government has no claim to without the Governor's consent. These are typically intended to guarantee that the state will have at least a small reserve force of trained personnel if a crisis arises locally while the National Guard is deployed elsewhere.
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