District of Columbia National Guard

Creating the District of Columbia

The Residence Act of 1790 established that the country would create a new capital city rather than selecting an existing city. In 1801, The Organic Act designed Washington, D.C. as the capital of the United States and put its governance under the control of Congress. Which militia would protect a city without a governor under the control of Congress?^{[5] [6]}

Establishing the D.C. National Guard

(From left to right): District of Columbia Militia commanding generals, Brig. Gen. Richard Simms (January 18, 1918 – March 31, 1920), Maj. Gen. Anton Stephan (April 28, 1920 – April 10, 1934) and Brig. Gen. William Harvey (June 4, 1913 – August 17, 1917)

The D.C. National Guard came about in part due to the efforts of President Thomas Jefferson, the first President to spend his term in Washington, D.C. He came into office during a time when strife between two major political parties was threatening to tear the new country apart. Soon, the commanding generals of the two closest militia units were members of President Jefferson's rival political party. At this point, there was only a very small regular army, and they were mostly patrolling the border. If one of the state's militias tried to force political will, there would be no way to keep them from marching on the Capitol and coercing—or even overthrowing—the government.

President Jefferson saw how vulnerable America's democracy would be if the will of a military general could keep the legislative body from enacting the will of the people. To prevent this, the Militia of the District of Columbia was created in the Assumption Act of May 3, 1802.^[7]

The D.C. National Guard is the only local National Guard with a national mission—to protect our Federal Government – a mission reflected in its motto "Capital Guardians."

On October 30, 1802, the D.C. Militia held its first muster. President Jefferson hand-selected his new officers and was known to enjoy attending drills. A year later, the Congress officially recognized the organization.

The Bladensburg races

The fledging D.C. Militia was tested during the War of 1812 and the Battle of Bladensburg. Maryland and Virginia, pre-occupied with attacks on their own territory, were sluggish to send troops to D.C. The D.C. Militia, even when augmented by regular forces, was overwhelmed and ordered to withdrawal. They watched the nation's capital burn. After the incident, Congress too noticed and increased the size and equipment of the D.C. Militia.

Other than the Headquarters itself, which traces its lineage to 1776 as an elements of the Maryland Militia in Georgetown and Bladensburg, the oldest continuous unit of the D.C. National Guard is Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC), 372nd Military Police Battalion which traces its lineage to the Wahington Light Infantry organized in 1836 by John A. Blake.^[8]

Francis Scott Key and the national anthem

The war of 1812 would produce an American treasure and one of the most famous veterans of the D.C. National Guard: Francis Scott Key, a lieutenant with the Georgetown Field Artillery of the D.C. Militia. During the British bombardment in Baltimore Barbour, he was sent to Maryland to negotiate with the British for a prisoner exchange. After negotiations, the ship's commander felt Key had seen too much and needed to stay on the ship through the rest of the attack on Baltimore's Fort McHenry. In the morning he observed the flag still flying above the Fort and was inspired to write the poem that became the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner— the national anthem of the United States. Since Key was on military orders to guarantee his safe passage, it may be said that the Star Spangled Banner was written by a District of Columbia National Guardsman on temporary active duty.

Inaugural heritage

The D.C. National Guard has played a special role in Presidential Inaugurations, a tradition starting in the earliest days of the nation. The D.C. Militia or National Guard has been at every Presidential Inauguration beginniing with an honor detail which rode with President Washington in recognition of his time as Virginia's militia commander.

A D.C. National Guard Soldier helps local civilian authorities with traffic control and crowd management, among other activities, at the 2013 Presidential Inauguration.

The D.C. Guard's participation in inaugurations may be that old, but certainly takes form in 1860. The election of Abraham Lincoln triggered several southern states to eventually secede from the Union. At Lincoln's first inaugural Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief of the Army, ordered the D.C. Militia to protect the president-elect from harm. The D.C. Militia guarded the parade routes, sappers preceded the president-elect, and D.C. Cavalry rode alongside of him, bucking their horses to make it difficult for snipers to take a shot. Upon arriving at the White House the new president received his first military salute from volunteer members of theD.C. Militia and an unbroken tradition of inaugural service was born.

When necessary, members of the D.C. National Guard may be deputized as special police, a role the active Army and Air Force cannot perform. That makes the National Guard an important element in large-scale events such as an inauguration. In 2009, the D.C. National Guard led a group of over ten thousand National Guard Soldiers and Airmen in support of he largest inauguration in history.^[9]

American Civil War

As war approached, the D.C. Militia was commanded by Major General Roger C. Weightman, one of six District of Columbia Mayors to serve as D.C. Militia Colonels or Generals. His subordinates included Major General Force; Brigadier Generals Bacon and Carrington; and Brigadier General Robert Ould, who would move to Virginia and later join the Confederate States Army.^[10]

Maryland and Virginia were both slave states at the beginning of the war, surrounding Washington with potential enemy territory. Three days before the shots at Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called in the D.C. Militia to protect the capital, making it famous for providing "the first man…first company…first regiment" mobilized for the American Civil War.

The D.C. Militia saw an unfortunate first when Private Manual C. Causten became the first Union prisoner of war captured by the Confederacy during the Civil War.

D.C. Militia Soldiers served on active duty for up to four years, engaging in combat during the Battle of Manassas and the Valley Campaign. They also maintained their historical role as protectors of the Capital, manning the forts which encircled Washington, D.C. At Fort Stevens, in Washington, D.C. soldiers included African-American Quartermaster clerks who were originally not allowed to join combat regiments. As D.C. faced attack from the Confederate States Army, they were issued weapons and told to defend their city. President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Fort Stevens to view the fighting. It is said that he was brusquely ordered from harm's way by an officer, possibly Horatio Wright, although other probably apocryphal stories claim that it was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., later Acting Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. It would be the only time in history that a serving President would face enemy fire.

Protecting the nation's borders

From its earliest days, the D.C. National Guard has remained ready to accept the call to protect the United States, participating in the Creek War, Seminole Wars and Spanish-American In 1898, the D.C's 1st Volunteer Infantry fought alongside the United States Volunteers during the War, where they earned credit for the Santiago Campaign.

The D.C National Guard served with border patrols on the Southwest border in 1916 during the Pancho Villa raids, a mission similar to the one they would return to in the 21st century in support of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

World War I

Enlisted men of the 1st Separate Battalion, an all African-American unit, examine weapons in the old army arms room prior to entering the War in Europe.

In 1917, fearing espionage, D.C. National Guard elements were mobilized 12 days before the U.S. officially entered World War I to protect reservoirs and power plants around Washington, D.C. Military officials were concerned that too many of the D.C. units were made up of men with foreign roots, thus the job of protecting vital facilities fell to the all-black 1st Separate Infantry, the only unit believed felt that they could be trusted with this mission.

Eventually the 1st Separate was mustered into active service and re-designated the 1st Battalion of the 372nd Infantry. In France, unsure of what to do with an African-American regiment, the 372nd was attached the French army's 157th "Red Hand" Division. The Soldiers fought in Meuse-Argonne, Lorraine and Alsace, where they were awarded the Croix de Guerre—one of the highest honors bestowed by the French military. General Goybet, the 157th Commanding General, gave the unit a Red Hand insignia in honor of their service. The red hand appears today on the creast of the 372nd Military Police Battalion. Although many D.C. National Guard units were mobilized, the 372nd was the only one to actually see combat during the war.

World War II

When the U.S. entered World War II, the D.C. Guard was immediately mobilized. Ground units served in both the Pacific and European theaters and air units saw service along the Atlantic coast in anti-submarine defense. The D.C. National Guard's 121st Engineer Combat Battalion was among the units in the first wave on Omaha beach inNormandy on D-Day, and is immortalized in the 1962 movie, The Longest Day.

In 1940, the 121st Observation Squadron was organized and began operations at Bolling Field (today Bollng Air Force Base) in Washington, D.C. It ended the way as the 121st Fighter Squadron. At the end of the war the U.S. Army Air Corps (later the U.S. Air Force) decided to preserve the history of its most famous fighter unit, the 352nd Fighter Group (know affectionately as the Bluenosed Bastards of Bodney), and allocated it to the e D.C Air National Guard's 113th Wing. Since the 113th Wing includes the 121st, it carries the campaign credit from the Antisubmarine Campaign, the Po Valley Campaign, the North Apennines Campaign and the Rome-Arno Campaign.

The Cold War era

At the end of World War II, the D.C. National Guard faced the enormous task of restructuring and retraining. The Cold War years marked a new relationship between the National Guard and active military. In 1947, the U.S. Air Force was designated a separate branch of the military; the D.C. Air National Guard became a reality in 1950, when the 113th Wing received federal recognition.

In 1951, the D.C. Army National Guard's 715th Truck Company became one of the few National Guard units mobilized for the Korean War to actually go to Korea. They called their orderly room in Korea the Blair House after the President's Guest House.

In 1961, the 113th Wing was activated for a year in support of the Berlin Crisis. In 1968, they were again activated by President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to the Pueblo Crisis. The bulk of the unit was assigned to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Later, many of these Airmen deployed as individuals to Vietnam in support of the Vietnam War.

Vietnam

During the Vietnam War most National Guard units were purposefully left out of the war over concern that a National Guard call-up would increase the unpopularity of the War. As part of the individual or "levied" replacement program, Air National Guard pilots were allowed to volunteer for deployment to Vietnam. The 113th Wing established a Replacement Training Unit to send F-100C Super Sabre pilots to the conflict. In 1968, Lieutenant Colonel Sherman Flanagan, who had been a D.C. Air Guardsman, was shot down and killed over Vietnam, one of the few National Guard casualties.

9/11 response

Continuous combat air patrols were maintained over Washington, D.C. and New York City until the spring of 2002. Today, the D.C. Air National Guard's 113th Aerospace Control Alert Detachment, day, night, rain or shine, are on alert 24/7 protecting the skies of Washington, D.C.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a duty officer from the 113th Wing, D.C. Air National Guard, received a call from the U.S. Secret Service with instructions from the White House to get the F-16s in the air. The Pentagon had just been hit, and the white House knew another airliner, United Flight 93—had been hijacked. After a call with the White House operations center, the 113th Wing commander issued a scrambled order to set up a combat air patrol over D.C. and to deter all aircraft within 20 miles with "whatever force is necessary…to keep from hitting a building downtown." As the F-16 crew returned due to fuel, the next crew went out. There was no time to arm them with missiles, so each fighter went out carrying only 500 training bullets—just enough for a five-second burst. At the time, they believed that there may be more hostile aircraft. Each committed to doing whatever necessary to stop any hostile aircraft they encountered, up to and including ramming the airliner.^[11] By this point, fighters from Langley Air Force Base and the fighters from the D.C. National Guard were put in contact with each other. Flight 93 was no longer a threat, but the two units worked together to escort aircraft out of the airspace.

Meanwhile, with little more information that several people at the Pentagon were dead and several more inured, the D.C. Army National Guard helicopter pilots were launched from Davidson Army Air Field to the site of the attack on the Pentagon. They began ferrying casualties to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and medical personnel back to the Pentagon.

In the days after September 11, 600 Soldiers from the D.C. Army National Guard were mobilized around the city, including the Capitol building. The Mobilization Augmentation Command reported to duty immediately, becoming the first National Guard unit mobilized for the Global War on Terror.

Global War on Terror

The D.C. National Guard has deployed more than 1,200 Soldiers and Airmen to support the Global War on Terror. The D.C. Guard completed over 90 whole-unit deployments, including tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Saudi Arabia and stateside missions as part of Operation Noble Eagle. Many D.C. National Guard Soldiers and Airmen served multiple deployments. Since September 11, 2001, the 113th Wing has provided 24-hour protective coverage over the skies of the United States's Capitals, as the "D.C. National Guard Capitol Guardians."

The D.C National Guard served with border patrols on the Southwest border in 1916 during the Pancho Villa raids, a mission similar to the one they would return to in the 21st century in support of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.