The Virginia National Guard consists of the Virginia Army National Guard and the Virginia Air National Guard. It is part of the Government of Virginia though the National Guard across the United States is mostly funded by federal monies. The Constitution of the United States specifically charges the National Guard with dual federal and state missions. In fact, the National Guard is the only United States military force empowered to function in a state status. Those functions range from limited actions during non-emergency situations to full scale law enforcement of martial law when local law enforcement officials can no longer maintain civil control. The National Guard may be called into federal service in response to a call by the President or Congress.
Many states also maintain their own military forces. These forces are federally recognized, but are separate from the United States National Guard and are not meant to be federalized, but rather service the state exclusively, especially when the National Guard is deployed and unavailable. The Virginia Defense Force is the commonwealth's own all-volunteer, formal military organization that is the reserve to the Virginia National Guard .
The Virginia National Guard has a State Partnership Program relationship with the Military of Tajikistan.
Famous quotes containing the words virginia, national and/or guard:
“While I am in favor of the Government promptly enforcing the laws for the present, defending the forts and collecting the revenue, I am not in favor of a war policy with a view to the conquest of any of the slave States; except such as are needed to give us a good boundary. If Maryland attempts to go off, suppress her in order to save the Potomac and the District of Columbia. Cut a piece off of western Virginia and keep Missouri and all the Territories.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; anything that is national is not scientific.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)