Long before there was a United States Army, or even a National Guard of the United States, there were local militias in colonial America. Because of this history, there has been a long-standing debate in this country as to whether we should have just career soldiers defend the nation, or also citizen-soldiers, part-time soldiers. In a way, Governor John Endecott is actually at the center of this matter because both the State of Massachusetts and the U.S. Federal Government recognize Salem, Massachusetts as the founding site of today’s National Guard, the bastion of the citizen-soldier. And the first to command the Salem militia was none other than John Endecott, which had led some to claim he was the first commander of what is now called the National Guard of the United States. It was not controversial for Massachusetts to designate Salem as the birthplace of the National Guard – in 2010, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed a law designating it as such -- but it was controversial for the Federal Government to do so. In 2012, U.S. Representative John Tierney, Democrat of the Massachusetts 6th Congressional District, introduced a bill to proclaim Salem as the birthplace of the National Guard in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives and it actually passed on March 28, 2013. But then, ironically, when Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, tried to get a similar bill, S. 2013, through the Democrat-controlled US Senate, it failed. When William T. Endicott asked a staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee what the hold-up in the Senate was, he was told that the Department of Defense historian objected to S. 2013 because he felt that Washington, D.C. was the birthplace of the National Guard because that’s where it was first federalized in 1903. In exchange for federal dollars, he argued, for the first time the state militias were now required to meet certain U.S. Army standards, perform a certain number of drills and undergo Army inspections and this represents the founding of the National Guard. William T. then pointed out that the website of the National Guard at http://www.nationalguard.mil said this: “The history of the National Guard began on December 13, 1636, when the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered the organization of the Colony's militia companies into three regiments: The North, South and East Regiments.” But the Senate staffer explained there are in effect two organizations representing the National Guard. First there’s the National Guard, which is not a federal organization, but rather a representative of all the State National Guards. Then, there’s the National Guard of the United States, which is the Department of Defense entity that runs the federalized National Guard. Bottom line: The National Guard said Salem, Mass, was the birthplace of the National Guard, but the National Guard of the United State said Washington DC was. But on December 21, 2012, legislation recognizing Salem as the birthplace of the National Guard finally passed the Senate and President Obama signed it into law on January 10, 2013. The law, Public Law 112-241, mentions John Endecott in the very first paragraph (although it misspells his name): (a) FINDINGS – Congress makes the following findings: (1) In 1629, Captain John Endicott organized the first militia in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Salem…. After the Revolution, there was a feeling that standing armies were bad because their very existence would make wars more likely. Better, it was thought, to rely on the citizen-soldier. This would be a citizen first and soldier second, only in the time of emergency, a “minuteman” who could set aside his civilian profession and rally to the colors when needed. The system worked well enough in early American history when military skills were elementary and easily learned and when there was time to prepare even after war had been declared. But as time went on and war became more complex because it called on increasingly larger units of men and more technologically complex weaponry, it became obvious that the United States needed at least a cadre of professional soldiers, buttressed by academies at West Point and Annapolis to train officers for it. Nevertheless, states rights, which has always been a fundamental tenet of the U.S. governmental system and includes to this day state differences in legal systems, educational systems and tax systems, also demanded that the States should keep their own armies. Thus, during the Civil War, the small standing Federal army had to be vastly augmented by the States placing state militias temporarily under Federal control. Over time tensions grew between the career soldiers in the standing army and citizen-soldiers in the National Guard, especially after the United States became entangled in foreign wars and war became even more complex. Simply stated, the careerists regarded the National Guardsmen as amateurish and the National Guardsmen, recalling George Washington’s admonition to rely primarily on citizen-soldiers, regarded the careerists as narrowly interested in petty military politics and occupied with promotion. Gradually, over U.S. history, however, the balance of power has tipped more and more in the favor of the careerists. Between 1877 and 1903, the National Guard was stigmatized by being called upon on more than 300 occasions to perform strike police duty, which was onerous for soldiers who came from the same communities as the strikers and the National Guard’s reputation suffered for generations thereafter. On top of that, the Army created the Army Reserve, thus diluting the National Guard as the only other source of manpower. The Army has taken over even more. Today, National Guard units have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, often for multiple tours, just as though they were Regular Army units, instead of spending most of their time at home taking care of local emergencies such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes, which was what was supposed to be their primary mission.