History
Guard members continue the legacy of the “Minutemen” of the American Revolution—citizen-soldiers trained and ready to put their peacetime pursuits on hold when called upon to serve their state or nation. Throughout much of its history, the U.S. has maintained only a small standing army. Instead, it has primarily relied on the militia system for security which, formalized in the Uniform Militia Act of 1792, embraced the principle of universal military obligation for most able-bodied males. Militia members participated in periodic compulsory unit training musters, and were responsible for providing their own weapons.
In 1848, the first session of the Wisconsin Legislature provided for the distribution of federal arms and military equipment. Wisconsin Guard troops fought in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, both the First and Second World Wars, and the Korean War. Guard members have been activated on numerous other occasions, including for the Berlin Crisis the Persian Gulf War, peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, and current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Read more about this topic: Wisconsin Army National Guard
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—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
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—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)