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Wisconsin State Guard


Fred Borgmann
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Fred Borgmann

The State Guard in most states is primarily a paper organization.  As such it exists on paper as a list of military units divided in to regiments and companies with mostly blank spaces for the names of the officers and men.  In times of extended national emergencies like World Wars I and II, the State Guard is activated after the National Guard has been called up into Federal Service. The State Guard would then be manned by volunteers that were too young or too old for active military service. The State Guard volunteers were  trained as quickly as possible so they would  be able to aid local authorities any where in their home state as needed for natural disasters, riots, strikes etc. State Guards remained under the command of their respective governors and could not be sent out of their states. The Wisconsin State Guard used the same insignia and medals as the regular National Guard and military with a few exceptions like their collar brass which in the past had the letters SG added.  Their hat badges and cloth patches were unique to Wisconsin.

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Here is a picture of a Wisconsin State Guard officers coat.  The green ribbon with number 1 is also on another WSG coat I have.  I assume it is for deployment but I can find no info on it.

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Fred Borgmann

Neat item!  The ribbon with the number one reminds me of a similar ribbon with the number one that I got while in ROTC when our squad took first place in a drill competition.

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collectsmedals

This cap was in a box of miscellaneous caps that I bought many years ago at a show. I never new what the S.G. stood for. I thought the tag inside the cap was interesting, it reads:

 

W.P.A. - Not to be sold 

        Wisconsin

       Com.  S. G.

         Style 43

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  • 2 years later...
Fred Borgmann

Looks to me like they knew war was coming (1939) and they were building up the core of nco's for the rapid expansion  of enlisted men that was coming in the near future.  That is a great book  you copied this from.

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