The Oklahoma National Guard, a division of the Oklahoma Military Department, is the component of the United States National Guard in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It comprises both Army (OKARNG) and Air (OKANG) National Guard components. The Governor of Oklahoma is Commander-in-Chief of the Oklahoma National Guard when in state use. The state's highest ranking military commander, the Adjutant General of Oklahoma (TAG), serves as the military head of the Guard and is second only to the Governor. The TAG is served by two Assistant Adjutants General, both brigadier generals, one the head of the Army Guard in the state, and the other the Air Guard chief. Currently these positions are held by BG Walter E. Fountain and BG William S. Hadaway, III, respectively. Similarly, The two components each have a senior noncommissioned officer, State Command Sergeant Major for Army, currently CSM Stephen L. Jensen, and State Command Chief Master Sergant for Air, currently CCMSgt John W. Waller.
The Governor may call individuals or units of the Guard into state service during emergencies or to assist in special situations which require the Guard. In its state role, the Guard serves to execute state laws, protect the public health, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion.
The National Guard may be called into federal service in response to a call by the President of the United States or U.S. Congress. When National Guard troops are called to federal service, the President serves as Commander-in-Chief.
Read more about Oklahoma National Guard: Units
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“I know only one person who ever crossed the ocean without feeling it, either spiritually or physically.... he went from Oklahoma to France and back again ... without ever getting off dry land. He remembers several places I remember too, and several French words, but he says firmly, “We must of went different ways. I don’t rightly recollect no water, ever.””
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“The cultivation of one set of faculties tends to the disuse of others. The loss of one faculty sharpens others; the blind are sensitive in touch. Has not the extreme cultivation of the commercial faculty permitted others as essential to national life, to be blighted by disease?”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“It is rare indeed that people give. Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves and what they identify with themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)