The Maryland Defense Force is the state defense force for the state of Maryland, United States. Its main mission is to provide medical, legal, and logistic support for the Maryland Army National Guard and the Maryland Air National Guard. The Maryland Defense Force falls under the command of the Governor of Maryland and the Adjutant General. It is a component of the Maryland Military Department. Their history dates back to colonial days in the 17th century, but it was formally established in 1917 with the mission "to protect public buildings, water supplies, and other properties". It was called the Maryland State Guard. It was disbanded in 1920 to make room for the National Guard to return to duties in the armories. The Maryland State Guard was reactivated in 1939 in response to Hitler's rampage in Europe. It was then deactivated in 1947.
As of 1983, the Maryland State Guard was reactivated and renamed the Maryland Defense Force. In 1994, the Maryland Defense Force's missions were expanded to search and rescue, armory staffing, and disaster relief. As of Sept 11, 2001, the Maryland Defense Force is now tasked with its current mission to provide support to the Maryland Military Department as needed.
Read more about Maryland Defense Force: History
Famous quotes containing the words defense and/or force:
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Man always made, and still makes, grotesque blunders in selecting and measuring forces, taken at random from the heap, but he never made a mistake in the value he set on the whole, which he symbolized as unity and worshipped as God. To this day, his attitude towards it has never changed, though science can no longer give to force a name.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)