Hold on Steady

Wyoming State Guard

By Bill Tallen
Posted 1/30/25

Sen. Dan Laursen (R-Wyo.) has re-introduced a bill in the Wyoming Legislature that did not get a floor vote in last year’s budget session. It’s been improved, now has the support of …

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Hold on Steady

Wyoming State Guard

Posted

Sen. Dan Laursen (R-Wyo.) has re-introduced a bill in the Wyoming Legislature that did not get a floor vote in last year’s budget session. It’s been improved, now has the support of several key so-sponsors, and deserves our attention and support.

Senate File 0045, Wyoming State Guard – Amendments is a short and simple bill (shorter than this column) that lays important groundwork for possible future contingencies. It amends existing laws that already authorize the governor to organize a state military force free of the National Guard’s federal responsibilities and commitments.

To understand this bill and its value requires (sorry!) a brief history lesson. In 1903, all state militias were absorbed into the National Guard, enabling standardization of their equipment, training, and organization so they could better augment the small regular Army in the event of war or national emergency. In 1916, with U.S. entry into World War 1 looming, Congress gave the federal government, for the first time, authority to call up the National Guard for as long as it deemed necessary, and deploy them anywhere in the world. 

When the entire National Guard was mobilized in 1917 and shipped overseas, state governors complained that they were left with no organized assets for disaster relief, maintaining civil order, suppressing rebellion (the Civil War was still a living memory), protecting vital infrastructure (soon to come were incidents of German sabotage on American soil, and U-boats and commerce raiders in our coastal waters), or repelling invasion (a real concern one year after Pancho Villa had led Mexican revolutionaries across the border to attack the town of Columbus, New Mexico). Do we not face comparable threats today?

In response, the federal Home Defense Act of 1917 authorized the raising of state forces when the National Guard was activated for federal service. It was not a great solution, because recruiting, organizing and training a cohesive, effective force would take months at least, and that effort would be largely wasted by disbanding it when the National Guard came home. The law was later amended (this is important, the foot-stomp, “take notes” portion of the lecture) to authorize permanent state guard forces, not linked to the absence of the National Guard. There’s the basis in law: state guards are components, alongside the National Guard, of lawful, constitutional, organized state militia everywhere in the United States.

Most states raised these forces during both world wars. Many of them remained active through the Cold War, and are still organized in 22 states. Laws governing them differ from state to state, but for the most part they are volunteer organizations, whose members are not paid unless called up into active service by order of the governor. Time spent in training and administrative duties is not compensated. Equipment is provided by the state. The trade-off for no federal authority is no federal funding.

Wyoming is one of a few states that authorized a state guard but never organized it, which brings us back to Sen. Laursen’s bill. The existing state guard statutes (W.S. 19-10) contain language that requires federal oversight and approval, a role that has not been required by federal law for the better part of a century, that the federal government has no intent or desire to perform. Dan’s bill removes that language, establishing full authority for the governor to act at his discretion. 

SF0045 appropriates a total of only $25,000, primarily to cover expenses of convening a council, as specified in existing statutes, to address doctrine, organization, recruiting, roles and responsibilities, a necessary prerequisite for any future action.

Why should we care? I made that case in this newspaper in February of last year, and will only give a brief recap here. We have fewer than 3,000 personnel in the Wyoming National Guard and Air National Guard combined, when they are not deployed; and we should recognize the possibility of another large-scale federal mobilization that could deploy all or most of them out of state. Other state assets for any off-normal events are fewer than 200 highway patrol troopers, sheriff’s departments that are all struggling to recruit and maintain their authorized strength, a handful of DCI agents and Homeland Security personnel, and not much else. 

We have a strong tradition of volunteer service in Wyoming, and a broad pool of military and law enforcement veterans who could bring their knowledge, skills and experience to bear in a part-time, locally based volunteer organization that could be created in cadre form and fleshed out rapidly in a time of need. 

From North Carolina to California in just the last half year, examples of state guard performance abound. Let’s lay the foundation for a low-cost, quickly deployable force multiplier in support of the National Guard, law enforcement, search and rescue, firefighting, and disaster response in Wyoming. 

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