Kentucky Army National Guard

The Kentucky Army National Guard is a component of the United States Army and the United States National Guard. Nationwide, the Army National Guard has more than 430,000 members as of FY 2023. National coordination of various state National Guard units are maintained through the National Guard Bureau.

Kentucky Army National Guard units are trained and equipped as part of the United States Army. The same ranks and insignia are used and National Guardsmen are eligible to receive all United States military awards. The Kentucky Guard also bestows a number of state awards for local services rendered in or to the state of Kentucky.

The Kentucky Army National Guard is authorized approximately 7,250 personnel and has an approximate strength of 6,406 as of November 3, 2022. The Kentucky ARNG is composed of approximately 61 armories and is present in 53 communities, with its headquarters located in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Installations

National Guard units can be federalized by presidential order to supplement regular armed forces, and upon declaration of a state of emergency by the governor of the state in which they serve. Unlike Army Reserve members, National Guard members cannot be mobilized individually (except through voluntary transfers and Temporary Duty Assignments TDY), but only as part of their respective units.

For much of the final decades of the twentieth century, National Guard personnel typically served "one weekend a month, two weeks a year", with a portion working for the Guard in a full-time capacity. The current forces formation plans of the US Army call for the typical National Guard unit (or national guardsman) to serve one year of active duty for every three years of service. More specifically, current Department of Defense policy is that no guardsman will be involuntarily activated for a total of more than 24 months (cumulative) in one six-year enlistment period (this policy is due to change 1 August 2007, the new policy states that soldiers will be given 24 months between deployments of no more than 24 months, individual states have differing policies).

The Kentucky State Guard became the Kentucky National Guard in 1912, when a new federal law regulating the militia came into effect. The new system set training standards for state units and established more efficient procedures for mobilizing the Guard into federal service.

The procedures were tested in 1916 when violence from the revolution going on in Mexico spilled across the border. Nearly all the Kentucky National Guard joined units from many other states on patrol along the Mexican border. For the first time, Kentucky troops used trucks and machine guns on active duty. Guardsmen returned from Texas in 1917 just in time to be mustered into federal service for duty in World War I. Kentucky units were attached to the 38th Infantry Division organized at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. The First Kentucky Infantry became the 138th Field Artillery, and the Second Kentucky became the 149th Infantry Regiment. After training, the 38th Division went to France to serve as replacements in other units. The division never fought as a single organization, but 7,518 National Guardsmen from Kentucky served in World War One and 890 Kentuckians died in the war.